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THE  GENERAL  VALUE  OF  VISUAL  SENSE 
TRAINING  IN  CHILDREN 


E&Hraltonat  PagrlynltigH  iTOonograplja 

No.  15 


THE 

GENERAL  VALUE  OF  VISUAL  SENSE 
TRAINING  IN  CHILDREN 

BY 

Chang  Ping  Wang 


'i ",'  ^ 


BALTIMORE 

WARWICK  &  YORK,  Inc. 
1916 


Copyright,  1916,  by 
Warwick  &  York,  Inc. 


^Au  tiC^^^-^^  ^^ 


EDITOR'S  PREFACE 

Contributions  to  the  experimental  study  of  the  trans- 
fer of  training  (formal  discipline)  scarcely  need  either 
apology  or  introduction  in  a  period  when,  despite  the 
considerable  amount  of  investigation,  so  very  much 
still  remains  undetermined  with  respect  to  the  amount 
of  such  transfer  and  the  mechanism  by  means  of  which 
it  takes  place. 

The  special  features  of  this  contribution  by  Dr. 
Wang,  a  Chinese  government  student  at  the  Univer- 
sity of  Michigan,  lie  in  the  use  of  school  children  as 
subjects  and  in  the  use  of  sense-training  as  the  medium 
of  experimentation.  In  this  latter  aspect  his  study 
will  be  particularly  welcome  from  the  light  it  throws 
upon  the  issue  of  sense-training,  which  is  almost  a 
fetish  of  the  adherents  of  the,  at  present,  so  popular 
Montessori  method. 

G.  M.  Whipple. 


340255 


TABLE  OF  CONTENTS 


Introduction 1 

Analytical  review  of  previous  experiments 5 

The  individual  method 6 

The  one-group  method 7 

The  two-group  method 8 

The  three-group  method 11 

New  experimental  data 13 

Experiment  1 

Aim 13 

Subjects 14 

The  trained  function 16 

Results  of  training 20 

Summary 26 

The  tested  functions 26 

Discrimination  of  pitch 28 

Summary 39 

Discrimination  of  shades  of  color 39 

Summary 45 

Discrimination  of  size .  .  . 46 

Summary 58 

Experiment  2 

Description  of  experiment 59 

Summary 67 

Experiment  3 

Description  of  experiment 68 

Summary 74 

Conclusions 75 

Bibliography 81 

vii 


,  J      0 ,      *      3     =>  > 

,        ,    j'     )    a     o     » 


INTRODUCTION 

There  are  two  types  of  disciplinists.  There  are 
those  of  the  old  type  who  beUeve  that  the  mental 
power  developed  by  the  training  of  one  function  will 
benefit  equally  all  other  functions.  This  type  is  repre- 
sented by  the  man  who  claims  that  any  kind  of  study, 
no  matter  what  it  may  be,  will  prepare  for  life,  so  long 
as  that  study  is  done  well.  The  later  type  of  dis- 
ciplinist  is  less  sweeping  in  his  claims.  He  believes 
that  the  training  of  a  specific  function,  such  as  memor- 
izing poetry,  will  benefit  all  other  kinds  of  memories, 
the  general  function  of  memory.  This  type  is  repre- 
sented by  the  man  who  advocates  studies  in  schools 
for  the  development  of  the  various  mental  functions: 
arithmetic  develops  the  power  of  accuracy;  Latin,  the 
power  of  analysis;  sense  education,  the  power  of  ob- 
servation. The  old  type  of  disciplinist  is  scarcely  to 
be  found  among  educators  of  today,  but  the  later 
type  still  dominates,  in  certain  respects,  the  educa- 
tional world.  Many  writers  have  already  pointed 
out  instances  showing  how  some  of  the  most  prom- 
inent educators,  both  in  Europe  and  America,  have 
overestimated  the  importance  of  this  type  of  dis- 
cipline. Thorndike,  Ruediger,  Fracker,  Winch  and 
others  have  not  only  attacked  it,  but  have  also  demon- 
strated by  experiments  the  limitations  of  certain 
specific  functions.  These  functions  are  selected  from 
those  general  functions  which  we  designate  as  mem- 
ory, discrimination,  or  reasoning.  The  results  show 
that  there  are  man}'  kinds  of  memories,  discrimina- 
tions  and   reasonings.     One   kind   of   memory,    after 


2 


/.    >  •    TISCJAL?  SEN^E   TRAINING   IN   CHILDREN 


much  training,  may  not  affect  certain  other  memories 
at  all.  The  same  has  been  found  true  in  other  fields 
of  mental  functioning. 

It  was  the  purpose  of  the  writer  to  continue  the  ex- 
perimentation within  the  field  of  discrimination  and,  if 
possible,  to  contribute  something  to  our  knowledge  of 
the  extent,  amount,  and  means  of  generalization,  or 
transfer,  upon  which  points  there  is  as  yet  no  general 
agreement.  By  extent  of  transfer  is  here  meant  the 
range  of  influence  which  the  training  of  a  specific  func- 
tion has  over  untrained  functions;  and  by  amount  of 
transfer,  the  aggregate  of  improvement  in  any  specific 
untrained  function  as  a  result  of  the  training. 

With  regard  to  the  extent  of  transfer  Thorndike 
says:  ^^Improvement  in  any  single  mental  function 
rarely  brings  about  equal  improvement  in  any  other 
function,  no  matter  how  similar,  for  the  working  of 
every  mental  function-group  is  conditioned  by  the 
nature  of  the  data  in  each  particular  case.''^  But 
Fracker  denies  this  by  saying:  '^Improvement  in  many 
cases  is  absolutely  greater  in  amount  in  the  test  than 
in  the  training.  "2  it  is  evident  that  this  question  of 
the  extent  of  transfer  needs  further  investigation. 

With  regard  to  the  amount  of  transfer  each  experi- 
ment has  shown  a  different  result.  This  is  due  partly 
to  different  methods  of  calculation  and  partly  to  the 
testing  of  different  functions.  In  some  experiments 
adults  act  as  subjects  and  in  others  children.  In  his 
calculations  one  experimenter  uses  points  to  denote 
the  amount  of  transfer  while  others  use  per  cent. 
Some  writers  take  the  improvement  of  the  trained 


^Thorndike,  E.  L.,  Educational  Psychology,  1903,  p.  91. 
2  Fracker,  G.  C,  Psychological  Review  Monograph   Supplement,  Vol. 
9,  No.  2,  p.  99. 


INTRODUCTION  6 

function  as  the  basis  of  calculation;  and  others,  the 
record  made  in  the  preliminary  test.  Naturally  the 
results  are  not  uniform.  There  is  a  special  need  just 
now  for  standardization  in  our  methods  of  experimen- 
tation as  well  as  in  the  methods  of  calculating  our 
results. 

With  regard  to  the  means  of  transfer  different  writers 
seem  to  have  reached  different  conclusions.  To  quote 
Colvin:  ^^The  question  whether  the  results  are  due 
to  functioning  of  identical  elements  (Thorndike);  to 
improvement  of  habitual  methods  of  recording  facts 
(James);  to  training  the  attention  and  will  power 
(Scripture  and  Davis) ;  to  divesting  the  essential  process 
of  the  unessential  factors,  greater  habituation  and  more 
economical  adaptation  of  attention  (Coover  and 
Angell);  to  the  effective  use  of  mental  imagery  and 
properly  controlled  attention  (Fracker);  to  the  devel- 
opment of  ideals  (Bagley,  Ruediger,  and  Ruger);  to 
general  improvement  in  technique  of  learning,  atten- 
tion and  will-power,  but  chiefly  to  a  sympathetic  inter- 
action of  allied  memory  functions  (Ebert  and  Meumann) , 
or  to  all  of  these,  or  to  some  other  factors  as  yet  not 
analyzed  out,  will  doubtless  for  a  long  time  offer  a 
fruitful  field  of  inquiry.  "^ 

The  present  experiments  were  undertaken  with  these 
different  questions  in  mind.  Reaction  time  is  taken 
throughout  to  detect  temporal  differences,  which  play 
an  important  part  in  sense  discrimination  of  all  kinds. 
Children  are  employed  as  subjects,  because  there  is  a 
suspicion  among  educational  psychologists  that  pos- 
sibly specific  training  has  a  greater  value  for  them  than 
for  adults,  on  account  of  the  faster  rate  of  physical 
and  mental  development  in  childhood.     This  suspicion 

3  Colvin,  S.  S.,  The  Learning  Process,  pp.  241-2. 


4  VISUAL   SENSE   TRAINING   IN    CHILDREN 

is  voiced  by  Foster  who,  writing  on  the  effect  of  practice 
upon  visuahzing  and  upon  the  reproduction  of  visual 
impressions,  concludes  his  article  by  remarking:  '^Speci- 
fic practice  is  demanded  for  best  results  and  becomes 
quickly  effective.  It  seems,  therefore,  as  if  the  value 
of  formal  training  of  our  kind  has  been  overestimated. 
However,  our  experiments  were  made  upon  adults 
who  were  already  trained  in  habits  of  attentive  obser- 
vation, and  we  have  no  right  or  wish  to  extend  our  con- 
clusions in  wholesale  fashion.  It  may  be  that,  for 
immature  and  untrained  persons,  practice  in  visual 
reproduction  might  possess  a  general  value  that  was 
not  discovered  under  our  conditions."^ 

The  writer  is  indebted  to  Dr.  J.  F.  Shepard,  Dr.  F.  S. 
Breed,  Professor  W.  B.  Pillsbury  and  Professor  A. 
S.  Whitney  for  their  suggestions,  supervision  and 
encouragement  throughout  the  work.  He  wishes  to 
thank  the  Board  of  Education  of  Ann  Arbor,  Michi- 
gan, for  giving  permission  to  carry  on  the  work  and 
especially  Miss  C.  L.  Dicken,  Principal  of  the  W.  S. 
Perry  School,  and  the  parents  who  kindly  consented 
to  let  their  children  act  as  subjects. 


*  Foster,  W.  S.,  The  Effect  of  Practice  upon  Visualizing  and  upon 
the  Reproduction  of  Visual  Impressions,  Jour.  Educational  Psychol- 
ogy, Vol.  2,  p.  21. 


ANALYTICAL  REVIEW  OF  PREVIOUS 
EXPERIMENTS 

The  origin  of  the  doctrine  of  formal  discipline  dates 
as  far  back  as  Plato,  who  wrote:  ^^and  have  you  further 
remarked  that  those  who  have  the  natural  talent  for 
calculation  are  generally  quick  at  every  other  kind  of 
knowledge;  and  even  the  dull  if  they  have  an  arith- 
metical training  gain  in  quickness  if  not  in  any  other 
way/'^  But  it  was  during  the  time  of  the  scholastics 
and  humanists  that  this  doctrine  reached  its  zenith. 
The  scholastics  regarded  the  mind  as  a  logical  machine 
for  the  purpose  of  grinding  out  cut-and-dried  truth, 
while  the  humanists  claimed  that  ancient  languages 
could  furnish  all  the  mental  nourishment  and  power 
necessary  for  life.  The  modern  criticism  of  the  doc- 
trine was  launched  by  the  German  Herbartians,  who 
maintained  'Hhat  since  all  mental  exercise  takes  its 
rise  in  a  definite  mental  content,  its  character  is  neces- 
sarily determined  by  its  origin. '^«  To  these  people 
was  due  the  credit  for  having  started  the  movement 
toward  experimental  investigation. 

For  a  chronological  review  of  the  experiments  which 
have  been  performed  the  reader  is  referred  to  Heck's 
Mental  Discipline  and  Educational  Values;  Thorndike's 
Educational  Psychology,  Vol.  2;  Bagley's  Educative 
Process,  or  Colvin's  The  Learning  Process.  It  would 
be  well  for  us  to  take  this  opportunity  to  review  the 
experimental  methods  which  seem  to  demand  descrip- 
tion.    Since  people  have  begun  to  test  the  doctrine 


^  Plato,  Republic,  Book  7. 

^Ruediger,  W.  C.,  Principles  of  Education,  p.  96. 


5 


6  VISUAL   SENSE    TRAINING   IN   CHILDREN 

of  formal  discipline  by  controlled  experiments,  there 
has  been  gradually  built  up  a  regular  method  for  con- 
ducting such  experiments.  From  the  work  of  William 
James,  who  performed  the  first  controlled  test  of  the 
spreading  influence  of  one  specially  trained  memory 
function  upon  memory  functions  of  a  different  content, 
to  the  present  day,  there  have  been  four  methods  used, 
each  an  improvement  over  its  precedessor.  The  very 
first  used  may  be  called 

The  Individual  Method 

To  William  James  should  be  given  the  credit  for 
first  using  this  method,  in  which  only  one  person  acts 
as  subject,  usually  the  experimenter  himself.  In 
James'  own  words: 

"In  order  to  test  the  opinion  so  confidently  expressed  in  the  text, 
I  have  tried  to  see  whether  a  certain  amount  of  daily  training  in  learn- 
ing poetry  by  heart  will  shorten  the  time  it  takes  to  learn  an  entirely 
different  kind  of  poetry.  During  eight  successive  days  I  learned  158 
hnes  of  Victor  Hugo's  'Satyr.'  The  total  number  of  minutes  required 
for  this  was  131% — it  should  be  said  that  I  had  learned  nothing  by 
heart  for  many  years.  I  then,  working  for  twenty-odd  minutes  daily, 
learned  the  entire  first  book  of  Paradise  Lost,  occupying  38  days  in 
the  process.  After  this  training  I  went  back  to  Victor  Hugo's  poem, 
and  found  that  158  additional  lines  (divided  exactly  as  on  the  former 
occasion)  took  me  1513^  minutes.  In  other  words,  I  committed  my 
Victor  Hugo  to  memory  before  the  training  at  the  rate  of  a  line  in  50 
seconds,  after  the  training  at  the  rate  of  a  Une  in  57  seconds,  just  the 
opposite  result  from  that  which  the  popular  view  would  lead  one  to 
expect.  But  as  I  was  perceptibly  fagged  with  other  work  at  the  time 
of  the  second  batch  of  Victor  Hugo,  I  thought  that  might  explain  the 
retardation;  so  I  persuaded  several  other  persons  to  repeat  the  test."^ 

This  method  of  testing  the  doctrine  of  formal  dis- 
cipline has  the  advantage  of  direct  introspection,  es- 
pecially when  the  experimenter  is  a  good  psychologist. 
On  the  other  hand,  we  feel  uncertain  whether  the  results 
obtained  will  represent  the  average  experience  of  the 


^  James,  Wm.,  The  Principles  of  Psychology,  Vol.  I,  pp.  666-667. 


REVIEW   OF   PREVIOUS   EXPERIMENTS 


mass.  We  hesitate  to  apply  such  individual  conclu- 
sions to  every-day  use,  since  researches  have  proved 
that  mental  traits  vary  as  much  as  physical  traits. 
For  example,  the  following  table  taken  from  Thorndike,^ 
showing  the  ability  of  4th-grade  girls  in  thinking  of 
opposites  of  words,  illustrates  the  curve  of  distribution 
in  one  mental  trait,  and  shows  clearly  how  wide  a 
range  of  ability  there  is  in  that  trait. 


Score  Made 

Number 

in  Test  with 

of 

Opposites 

Children 

—9  to 

—5 

by 

3  girls 

—4  " 

0 

5     " 

0  " 

4 

8    " 

5  " 

9 

10    " 

10  " 

14 

33     " 

15  " 

19 

36     " 

20  " 

24 

29     " 

25  " 

29 

16    " 

30  " 

34 

11     " 

35  " 

39 

4    " 

40  " 

44 

3    " 

To  eliminate  the  individual  variations,  then,  a 
number  of  subjects  are  employed,  and  this  may  be 
called  the 

One-Group  Method 

One  of  the  first  to  use  this  method  was  Dr.  E.  L. 
Thorndike,  who  has  contributed  so  much  to  the  study 
of  individual  differences.  He  describes  his  experi- 
ment briefly  as  follows: 

"Individuals  practiced  estimating  the  areas  of  rectangles  from  10 
to  100  sq.  cm.  in  size  until  a  very  marked  improvement  was  attained. 
The  improvement  in  accuracy  for  areas  of  the  same  size  but  of  differ- 
ent shape  due  to  this  training  was  only  44  per  cent  as  great  as  that 
for  areas  of  the  same  shape  and  size.  For  areas  of  the  same  shape, 
but  from  140-300  sq.  cm.  in  size,  the  improvement  was  30  per  cent 
as  great.  For  areas  of  different  shape  and  from  140-400  sq.  cm.  in 
size,  the  improvement  was  52  per  cent  as  great. "^ 


8  Thorndike,  E.  L.,  Principles  of  Teaching,  p.  74. 

3  Thorndike,  E.  L.,  Educational  Psychology,  Vol.  II,  p.  397. 


8  VISUAL   SENSE    TRAINING   IN   CHILDREN 

The  result  stated  in  this  experiment  was  obtained 
by  averaging  the  totals  of  the  practiced  individuals. 
In  this  way  individual  peculiarities  are  in  a  measure 
eliminated.  Wherever  a  large  number  of  subjects  are 
available,  the  result  will  be  safer. 

Though  this  was  an  advance  in  the  technique  of 
experimentation,  there  was  still  room  for  improvement. 
All  Thorndike's  subjects  were  given  the  various  tests 
('^ areas  of  the  same  size  but  of  different  shape," 
^^  areas  of  the  same  shape  but  from  140-300  sq.  cm.  in 
size,"  and  ^^ areas  of  different  shape  and  from  140-400 
sq.  cm.  in  size")  before  as  well  as  after  the  training 
(''areas  of  rectangles  from  10  to  100  sq.  cm.  in  size") 
took  place.  The  first  or  preliminary  test  really  amounts 
to  a  training  in  itself.  If  this  is  the  case,  there  is  no 
way  to  tell  how  much  of  the  44,  30  and  52  per  cent 
improvements,  respectively,  were  due  to  the  first  test 
and  how  much  to  the  training  received  from  the  prac- 
tice in  estimating  areas  of  rectangles  from  10  to  100 
sq.  cm.  in  size.  To  separate  these  two  factors,  im- 
provement due  to  practice  and  improvement  due  to 
the  preliminary  test,  educators  have  since  introduced 
the 

Two-Group  Method 

The  two-group  method  means,  as  the  name  implies, 
that  the  subjects  to  be  tested  are  evenly  divided,  ac- 
cording to  physical  and  mental  development,  into  two 
groups.  While  both  groups  are  tested,  first  before 
and  then  after  the  practice  or  training,  only  one  of 
the  groups  receives  the  training.  There  are  several 
advantages  to  this  method  of  procedure.  By  the  use 
of  the  untrained  group  the  possible  effects  of  the  pre- 
liminary test,  maturation,  and  incubation  are  not  con- 
fused with  transfer  effects.     By  a  comparison  of  the 


REVIEW   OF   PREVIOUS   EXPERIMENTS  9 

two  groups,  trained  and  untrained,  the  practice  effect, 
if  there  be  any,  of  the  preHminary  test  of  the  trained 
group  can  not  be  mistaken  for  transfer,  since  on  the 
average  this  practice  will  be  the  same  for  the  two 
groups.  In  a  similar  way  the  two-group  method  elimi- 
nates the  possible  confusion  of  transfer  and  maturation 
effects.  Manifestly,  on  the  average  the  two  groups 
will  mature  equally.  Psychologists  who  are  familiar 
with  the  Binet  tests  can  show  us  in  children  mental 
growth  of  two  or  even  three  years  during  one  year  of 
physical  maturation.  If  experiments  are  performed 
with  children  as  subjects,  there  is  always  this  factor 
of  maturation  involved,  especially  when  several  months 
are  allowed  to  pass  between  the  preliminary  and  the 
final  tests. 

There  is  possibly  another  factor  that  the  two-group 
method  checks  off,  namely,  the  incubation  tendency; 
that  is,  the  tendency  for  a  function  to  improve  in 
efficiency  during  a  period  of  disuse.  This  tendency 
is  best  illustrated  by  Swift's  ball-tossing  experiment. 
He  had  five  adult  subjects  work  at  '^keeping  two  balls 
going  [in  the  air]  with  one  hand,  receiving  and  throwing 
one  while  the  other  is  in  the  air  . .  . .  The  balls  used 
were  of  solid  rubber  and  weighed   122.6   and   130.2 

grams Their  diameters  were  42   and  44  mm., 

respectively The  daily  program  consisted  of  ten 

trials,  the  subject  in  each  case  continuing  the  throwing 
until  he  failed  to  catch  one  or  both  of  the  balls. '^^o 
Summarizing  the  results  of  two  of  the  subjects  who 
took  the  trouble  to  test  the  incubation  tendency, 
Thorndike  writes,  ^^ Subject  H,  having  begun  with  a 
score  of  about  4,  and  having  reached,  in  the  last  six 

^°  Swift,  E.  J.,  Studies  in  the  Psychology  and  Physiology  of  Learn- 
ing, Am.  Jour.  Psych.,  Vol.  14,  p.  201. 


10  VISUAL   SENSE    TRAINING   IN   CHILDREN 

days  of  forty-two  days  of  practice,  average  scores  of 
50,  82,  92,  88,  68  and  105,  was  retested  every  thirty 
days  for  five  months,  and  attained  average  scores  of 
70,  80,  140,  110,  and  120.  Being  then  tested  after 
four  hundred  and  eighty-one  days,  he  attained  an 
average  score  of  119.  Being  then  tested  after  over 
four  years,  he  attained  an  average  score  of  5;  on  the 
following  day,  one  of  10;  and  on  the  successive  follow- 
ing days,  average  scores  of  18,  20,  26,  35,  66,  60,  45, 
100  and  160.  Subject  E,  having  begun  with  a  score 
of  about  10,  and  having  reached,  in  the  last  six  days 
of  fourteen  days  of  practice,  average  scores  of  31,  53, 
80,  105,  115  and  127,  was  retested  every  thirty  days 
for  five  months,  1^  and  attained  average  scores  of  115, 
145,  155,  230  and  325.  Being  next  tested  after  an 
interval  of  463  days,  he  attained  an  average  score  of 
152.  '^12  It  is  possibly  true  that  'Hhe  disuse  of  a  mental 
function  weakens  it,  and  the  amount  of  weakening 
increases,  the  longer  the  lack  of  exercise, '^^^  but  at 
the  time  while  the  learning  remains  fresh,  as  is  the 
case  with  the  two  subjects  cited  above  who  showed  a 
decided  improvement  in  their  five  months'  re-test, 
the  incubation  tendency  was  still  going  on.  Usually 
an  experiment  of  this  kind  does  not  last  more  than  a 
few  months.  But  if  the  incubation  tendency  is  involved 
the  two-group  method  eliminates  it. 

It  is  clear  that  the  two-group  method  has  been  a 
great  help  in  experiments  of  this  kind.  Though  the 
intention  has  been  to  check  off  the  influence  due  to 
the  preliminary  test,  it  eventually  eliminates  the  influ- 
ence of  maturation  as  well  as  the  incubation  tendency. 


""There  was  some  practice  with  the  left  hand  during  the  first 
thirty  days  interval  in  the  case  of  both  H  and  E." 

12  thomdike,  E.  L.,  Educational  Psychology,  Vol.  II,  pp.  309-310. 
"/Wd.,  p.  300. 


REVIEW   OF   PREVIOUS   EXPERIMENTS  11 

Three-Group  Method 

While  carrying  on  the  present  experiment  the  writer 
has  found  it  expedient  to  make  use  of  an  additional 
group.  The  object  of  this  was  to  determine  the  amount 
of  difference  due  to  changed  conditions  of  the  weather, 
from  winter  to  spring;  of  the  experimentation  room, 
from  the  basement  to  the  first  floor;  and  of  the  daily 
program  of  studies  (all  the  subjects  had  been  promoted 
in  their  grades  at  the  time  of  the  final  test).  If  an 
experiment  is  carried  on  for  months,  as  was  the  present 
one,  a  change  of  weather  and  of  the  daily  program  of 
studies  can  not  be  helped.  These  changes  may  prove 
to  be  more  or  less  favorable  to  the  final  test,  and  hence 
both  the  trained  and  the  untrained  groups  may  test 
out  better  or  worse  than  under  the  conditions  of  the 
prehminary  test.  A  third  group,  taking  neither  train- 
ing nor  the  preliminary  test,  but  simply  the  final  test 
together  with  the  other  two  groups,  will  show  just 
how  much  difference  there  is  at  the  final  test,  and 
whether  the  trained  and  the  untrained  groups  have 
improved  or  deteriorated.  In  case  the  third  group 
yields  a  better  result  than  did  the  two  other  groups 
at  their  preliminary  test,  it  will  indicate  that  the 
conditions  of  the  final  test  are  more  favorable;  if 
a  worse  result,  that  the  conditions  at  the  final  test  are 
less  favorable;  and  if  the  same  result,  that  will  confirm 
whatever  difference  there  may  be  between  the  trained 
and  the  untrained  groups. 

The  three-group  method  will  prove  useful  for  another 
reason.  When  poetry  and  prose  are  used  to  test 
memory,  or  when  arithmetical  problems  are  used  to 
test  reasoning,  or  when  the  marking  of  letters  and 
figures  are  used  to  test  discrimination,  it  is  almost  im- 


12  VISUAL   SENSE   TRAINING   IN   CHILDREN 

possible  to  find  materials  of  equal  difficulty  for  both 
the  preliminary  and  the  final  tests.  Consequently, 
there  have  been  in  the  past  experiments,  cases  where 
both  trained  and  untrained  groups  have  shown  im- 
provements and  other  cases  where  both  have  shown  a 
retrogression  on  account  of  the  material  chosen  for 
the  final  test.  If  th,e  material  for  the  final  test  has 
been  easier  than  that  used  in  the  preliminary,  both 
trained  and  untrained  groups  have  shown  improvement 
and  if  the  material  chosen  for  the  final  test  has  been 
more  difficult,  both  groups  have  shown  a  decrease  in 
efficiency.  Just  how  much  easier  or  more  difficult 
the  material  chosen  for  the  final  test  has  been  than 
that  of  the  preliminary,  a  third  group  would  have 
shown.  For  these  reasons  the  writer  believes  that 
future  experimenters  may  find  the  additional  group 
helpful. 


NEW  EXPERIMENTAL  DATA 

Experiment  1 
Aim 

As  has  been  stated  in  the  introduction,  since  there 
is  yet  considerable  disagreement  as  to  the  means,  extent 
and  amount  that  a  specifically  trained  function  may 
affect  other  functions,  it  became  the  purpose  of  this 
study  to  throw  some  light  on  these  various  points  by 
using  new  data. 

A  word  should  be  added  to  show  why  sense  discrimi- 
nation was  chosen  for  experiment.  It  was  thought 
that  work  with  sense  discrimination  can  be  made  very 
simple;  that  it  is  easy,  too,  for  use  with  the  children. 
Moreover,  through  the  influence  of  Montessori  there 
has  been  of  late  somewhat  of  a  revival  of  interest  in 
sense  training.  Her  visit  to  America  in  1913  aroused 
much  interest,  and  her  book.  The  Montessori  Method, 
has  gone  through  several  editions.  Her  explanation 
of  her  theory  will  prove  enlightening:  ^'We  cannot 
create  observers  by  saying  ^observe,'  but  by  giving 
them  the  power  and  the  means  for  this  observation, 
and  these  means  are  procured  through  education  of 
the  senses.  Once  we  have  aroused  such  activity, 
auto-education  is  assured,  for  refined,  well-trained 
senses  lead  us  to  a  closer  observation  of  the  environ- 
ment,   and   this,    with    its   infinite    variety,    attracts 

the  attention  and  continues  the  psychosensory  educa- 
tion. "^^ 

Since  our  experiment  includes  a  few  tests  on  forms, 
it  will  be  of  interest  to  cite  her  opinion  on  this  matter 


"  Montessori,  M.,  The  Montessori  Method,  p.  228. 

13 


14  VISUAL   SENSE    TRAINING   IN   CHILDREN 

also.  She  says:  ^'He  [the  child]  will,  however,  see  the 
plane  geometric  forms  perfectly  represented  in  the 
windows  and  doors,  and  in  the  faces  of  many  solid 
objects  in  use  at  home.  Thus  the  knowledge  of  the 
forms  given  him  in  plane  geometric  insets  will  be  for 
him  a  species  of  magic  key,  opening  the  external  world, 
and  making  him  feel  that  he  knows  its  secrets.  "^^ 

Montessori  does  not  make  clear  how  many  doors  of 
the  external  world  this  magic  key  opens,  nor  how  wide, 
nor  just  in  what  way  they  are  opened.  If  it  is  true 
that  well  trained  senses  will  invariably  lead  children 
to  closer  observation,  it  will  probably  mean  great 
changes  in  the  daily  program  of  the  elementary  schools. 
It  is  but  just  that  educational  reforms,  discoveries, 
or  any  new  movements  should  be  recognized  and 
promoted,  once  they  are  found  to  be  worthy.  On 
the  other  hand,  if  they  are  not  confirmed  by  properly 
controlled  tests,  students  of  education  owe  it  to  the 
public  to  expose  their  fallacy.  This  explains  the  pur- 
pose of  using  sense  training  in  our  experiment. 

Subjects 

When  the  work  was  started  in  October,  1913,  twenty- 
two  children  took  the  preliminary  test,  and  eleven  of 
these  were  retained  for  the  training.  Experiments 
were  conducted  only  on  the  days  when  there  was 
school.  These  twenty-two  children  represented  ap- 
proximately four  grades  of  mentality,  according  to 
the  teachers'  opinions  and  the  Binet  tests  taken  in 
two  successive  years,  1911  and  1912.  It  was  thought 
that  possibly  bright  children  might  be  benefited  more 
than  dull  ones  by  a  special  training  and  thus  would 


^^  Montessori,  M.,  Ihid.^  p.  239. 


NEW  EXPERIMENTAL   DATA 


15 


show  a  larger  amount  of  transfer,  so  pupils  of  four 
different  grades  of  mentality  (excellent,  good,  average 
and  poor)  were  chosen  to  test  this  possibility.  Un- 
fortunately, the  two  lower  grades  (average  and  poor) 
were  unable  to  continue  in  the  experiment  to  the  end 
because  the  experimental  work  was  thought  to  inter- 
fere with  their  school  work.  Those  who  were  left, 
therefore,  rank  above  the  average  pupils  of  their  age. 

TABLE  1 

Number  of  Subjects,  their  Age  in  Jan.,  1914,  their  School  Grades,  the 

Teachers^  Estimate  of  their  School  Work,  and  their  Mental  Growth 

from  1911  to  1912  according  to  the  Binet  Tests^^ 

Trained  Group 


Subjects 

Age  in 

Grade  in 

Teachers' 

Mental    growth 

Jan.,  1914 

1914 

estimate 

1911-1912 

I 

9.1 

4B 

Excellent 

1.2 

II 

9.4 

3B 

Good 

III 

11.1 

4B 

li 

.8 

IV 

10.0 

3  A 

a 

1.6 

V 

12.7 

5B 

(( 

1.4 

VI 

9.3 

3A 

(I 

1.0 

VII 

11.3 

4A 

(I 

.4 

Average 

10.4 

1.07 

Untrained  Group 


VIII 

9.5 

4B 

Excellent 

.6 

IX 

9.9 

4A 

Good 

1.2 

X 

10.3 

3  A 

u 

1.0 

XI 

9.4 

4A 

(( 

1.4 

XII 

11.3 

3  A 

u 

.4 

XIII 

9.4 

4B 

il 

1.2 

Average 

9.97 

.97 

On  account  of  the  dropping  out  of  the  less  gifted 
children  (four  out  of  the  trained  group  and  five  out 


^*  After  C.  S.  Berry,  University  of  Michigan.    Unpublished  study. 


16  VISUAL   SENSE   TRAINING  IN   CHILDREN 

of  the  untrained  group)  the  balance  of  these  two  groups 
is  slightly  in  favor  of  the  trained  group,  especially  in 
age  and  rate  of  mental  growth.  The  difference  is, 
however,  not  large  enough  to  make  the  two  groups 
non-comparable. 

The  Trained  Function 

The  trained  function  was  the  discrimination  of 
different  lengths  of  vertical  lines  drawn  on  cards. 
There  were  eleven  of  these  cards,  each  3  x  63^  inches. 
On  each  card  only  one  line  was  drawn,  always  in  the 
center  and  parallel  to  the  short  side.  The  longest 
line,  on  the  card  a,  was  1%  inches,  V30  of  an  inch  longer 
than  the  next  line  on  card  6.  The  line  on  card  h  was 
Vso  of  an  inch  longer  than  the  line  on  card  c,  and  so  on 
to  card  k,  which  had  a  line  of  13^  inches.  All  lines 
were  drawn  of  a  uniform  width  of  .2  mm. 

Figure  1  shows  the  apparatus  used  in  training.  The 
table  A-B,  36  inches  long,  24  inches  wide  and  25  inches 
high,  was  enclosed  during  the  experiment  by  a  square 
topped  canopy  as  large  as  the  table  itself.  This 
canopy  was  made  2]^,  feet  above  the  table,  and  sup- 
ported by  a  light  wooden  framework  nailed  to  the 
edges  of  the  table.  In  order  to  get  the  photograph, 
the  framework  and  canopy  were  both  removed.  The 
subject  sat  in  chair  C  at  the  end  of  the  table  and  the 
operator  in  chair  D  at  the  side  of  the  table  to  his  left. 
Two  cards  were  shown  to  the  subject  in  succession,  and 
the  subject  gave  his  judgment  in  terms  of  the  second 
card  shown  saying  'longer"  or  ''shorter'^  (than  the 
line  on  the  first  card).  The  first  card,  1  in  Figure  1, 
was  exposed  to  the  subject  for  three  seconds,  the  opera- 
tor counting  to  himself  1-2-3,  and  then  by  a  pull  on 
the  string  (6),  card  1  was  pulled  out  of  sight  of  the 


NEW  EXPERIMENTAL   DATA 


17 


Figure  1 


AB  Table  for  experiment 

C  Chair  of  subject 

D  Chair  of  operator 

1  First  card  shown 

2  Second  card  shown 

4  Cover  for  card  last  shown 

5  Cattell  Fall. 


6  String  that  pulls  card  1  out  of 

sight  as  cover  4  comes  down, 
thus  showing  card  2 

7  Lip-key 

8  Bergstrom  Chronoscope 

10  Electric  commutator 

11  Paper  for  record 

12  String  to  let  fall  cover  4 


18  VISUAL   SENSE    TRAINING   IN    CHILDREN 


Figure  2 


NEW   EXPERIMENTAL   DATA  19 

subject  and  card  2  appeared  (see  Figure  2).  It  will 
be  noticed  that  card  2,  now  in  view,  was  hidden  behind 
the  falling  plate  (4)  of  the  Cattell  Fall  (5)  while  card 
1  was  first  shown.  The  falling  of  the  plate  (4)  showed 
card  2  and,  at  the  same  time,  pulled  card  1  out  of 
sight  by  means  of  a  string  (6) .  While  looking  at  these 
cards,  the  subject  took  hold  of  the  lip-key  (7)  with  his 
teeth.  The  lip-key  was  connected  with  the  Cattell 
Fall  (5)  and  the  Bergstrom  Chronoscope  (8)  with 
electric  wires.  As  soon  as  the  plate  (4)  came  down, 
that  is,  as  soon  as  the  second  card  was  shown,  the 
chronoscope  was  automatically  set  going,  and  was 
stopped  again  whenever  the  subject  released  the  lip- 
key  in  giving  his  judgment.  Thus,  the  time  spent  by 
the  subject  in  judging  whether  the  second  line  was 
longer  or  shorter  than  the  first  was  recorded  by  the 
chronoscope.  To  be  sure  that  a  uniform  amount  of 
light  was  thrown  upon  the  cards,  two  tungsten  lights, 
40  watts  each,  were  hung  inside  the  canopy,  six  inches 
from  the  top  and  eight  inches  from  the  end  of  the  table 
where  the  subject  sat.  A  large  cardboard,  tied  close  to 
the  lights,  kept  the  lights  from  shining  into  the  eyes 
of  the  subject.  The  light  from  outside  was  entirely  ex- 
cluded. The  lip-key  was  always  placed  six  inches  from 
the  edge  of  the  table  and  the  Cattell  Fall  two  feet  from 
this. 

The  difference  between  the  two  lines  shown  for 
judgment  was  invariably  Vso  of  an  inch.  Each  day 
a  subject  made  twenty  judgments,  there  being  ten 
cases  where  the  second  line  was  shorter  and  ten  cases 
where  the  second  line  was  longer.  The  order  of  the 
different  pairs  to  be  judged  was  changed  every  day 
by  the  shuffling  of  a  set  of  slips  on  which  the  different 
pairs  were  written.  The  following  is  a  sample  training 
record. 


20  VISUAL   SENSE   TRAINING   IN    CHILDREN 

TABLE  2 

Sample  of  a  Record  During  the  Training 

Feb.  4,  8:30  A.  M.,  Subject  I 


1. 

Card  e 

compared  with  card  d 

1230; 

sigmas 

Judgment 

,  vvTong 

2. 

(( 

h 

11 

(i 

11 

g 

1270 

il 

11 

right 

3. 

(I 

c 

(i 

il 

11 

d 

720 

a 

11 

il 

4. 

ii 

g 

<< 

li 

11 

f 

930 

11 

il 

11 

5. 

(( 

b 

(I 

a 

11 

c 

635 

il 

ti 

tt 

6. 

u 

g 

a 

a 

n 

h 

2000 

11 

il 

wrong 

7. 

il 

i 

<( 

il 

11 

h 

910 

11 

a 

right 

8. 

i( 

f 

(( 

li 

11 

g 

1280 

11 

a 

tt 

9. 

n 

d 

<( 

il 

11 

e 

665 

11 

11 

tt 

10. 

(( 

i 

(< 

11 

li 

j 

1200 

11 

11 

ti 

11. 

(I 

f 

a 

11 

il 

e 

1000 

li 

It 

tt 

12. 

(I 

k 

(I 

a 

il 

j 

870 

il 

11 

it 

13. 

u 

d 

il 

u 

11 

c 

1000 

11 

it 

it 

14. 

11 

j 

il 

11 

11 

k 

1300 

11 

tt 

tt 

15. 

(( 

li 

11 

li 

i 

945 

11 

ti 

il 

16. 

i( 

3 

11 

li 

il 

a 

570 

a 

tt 

wrong 

17. 

u 

h 

il 

11 

11 

i 

840 

11 

a 

right 

18. 

(I 

c 

11 

il 

a 

b 

1370 

11 

It 

ti 

19. 

<( 

a 

11 

11 

11 

b 

770 

li 

It 

tt 

20. 

il 

e 

a 

li 

it 

f 

1170 

il 

tt 

tt 

Total 

20675 

11 

tt 

3 

wrong 

Net 

1034 

li 

It 

17  right 

Average  time  for  wrong  judgments 

1267 

11 

(I 

a 

"   right 

a 

993 

il 

After  each  judgment,  the  subject  was  immediately 
told  whether  he  was  right  or  wrong.  This  was  done 
to  show  him  where  his  mistakes  were,  that  he  might 
make  correction. 

Results  of  Training 

Table  3  and  Figure  3  give  the  results  of  the  trained 
group.  Between  February  26  and  March  19  the 
work  was  discontinued  on  account  of  a  misunderstand- 
ing of  the  nature  of  the  experiment  by  some  of  the 
parents  whose  children  acted  as  subjects.  Spring 
vacation,  April  4  to  14,  was  the  cause  of  another  dis- 
continuation.    Counting    out    these    periods    of   dis- 


NEW   EXPERIMENTAL   DATA  21 

continuations  and  week-ends  when  there  was  no  school, 
together  with  a  few  hoUdays,  there  were  given  alto- 
gether forty-eight  trainings,  covering  a  space  of  fourteen 
weeks. 

If  columns  3  and  6  in  Table  3  and  curves  A  and  B 
in  Figure  3  are  compared,  it  will  be  noticed  that,  while 
the  number  of  wrong  judgments  decreased  from  day  to 
day,  there  was,  correspondingly,  an  increased  reaction 
time  (time  used  by  the  subjects,  when  the  line  on  the 
second  card  was  shown,  to  judge  whether  that  was 
longer  or  shorter  than  the  first).  In  other  words,  the 
accuracy  in  judging  vertical  lines  ranging  from  IK  to 
1%  inches  with  a  constant  difference  of  Vso  of  an  inch 
seems  to  depend  upon  the  amount  of  time  used  for 
each  judgment.  This  increased  time  was  rather  unex- 
pected, because  in  past  experiments,  in  memorizing 
poetry,  or  in  reasoning  out  puzzles,  training  had 
resulted  in  a  decrease  of  time.  This  temporal  difference 
suggests  that  sensory  and  higher  mental  improvements 
are  brought  about  in  different  ways.  It  may  be  that 
while  higher  mental  improvements  can  be  attained  by 
many  short-cut  methods,  there  is  only  one  way  for 
sensory  improvement,  that  is,  by  a  better  adaptation 
of  the  sense  organ,  which  means  taking  more  time. 

If  columns  4  and  5  and  curves  C  and  D  are  com- 
pared, it  will  be  noticed  that  in  most  cases  more  time 
was  used  on  the  wrong  than  on  the  right  judgments. 
This  means  that,  when  the  subjects  were  confronted 
with  difficult  cases  to  judge,  they  usually  made  use  of 
more  time  to  resolve  the  difficulty.  However,  there 
were  cases  when  they  could  not  judge  rightly  in  spite 
of  the  increased  time  used,  hence  the  average  reaction 
time  for  wrong  judgments  is  considerably  higher  than 
that  of  the  right  judgments.     When   subjects,  after 


a 

CO 


fo 


o 


o 

a 

« 
P 

o 
O 


o  fl 

^  s  s 

-e  c'^  '^ 
a;  £•—;=! 

fl  '^  o  o 
b  o  o  o 

Q  43  -+^  43 

tH      C      fl      C 

o  o,o  o 
-Q  "^  "43  '43 
g  o  o  o 
-^  o3  c3  o5 
2   d   Q   O 

G      tH      ^H      Ul 

o  a  lU  o) 
bC  bc  bC  bO 
c3   o3   o3   (^ 

bi  f-*  b^  f-i 
OJ   o   O)   O) 

>   >  >  > 

C3   ^    c3   c3 

o  c>  ai  o 

-fj  -^  -*j  ^j 


rl      0)    O    p    <y 
t^      >    >    >    S 

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TABLE  3 

Average  Reaction  Time  of  Seven   Subjects,    Twenty   Judgments    Daily; 

Average  Reaction  Time  for  the  Right  and  Wrong  Judgments;  and  the 

Average  Number  of  Wrong  Judgments.     Time  in  Sigmas 


Average  re- 

Average re- 

Average re- 

No. of 

action  time, 

action  time, 

action  time, 

Average  No. 

train 

Date 

20  judg- 

wrong judg- 

right judg- 

of wrong 

ing 

ments  alto- 
gether 

ments 

ments 

judgments 

1 

Jan. 

7 

1014 

1104 

946 

8.50 

2 

(( 

8 

951 

983 

950 

7.00 

3 

li 

9 

1212 

1339 

1170 

6.86 

4 

u 

12 

1198 

1194 

1202 

6.29 

5 

(( 

13 

1434 

1517 

1343 

7.67 

6 

l( 

14 

1371 

1373 

1375 

5.57 

7 

u 

15 

991 

1005 

991 

6.25 

8 

(( 

16 

1172 

1328 

1103 

5.86 

9 

u 

19 

1070 

1186 

1013 

5.50 

10 

u 

20 

890 

1040 

805 

4.50 

11 

li 

21 

963 

1047 

980 

6.00 

12 

11 

22 

813 

803 

821 

5.50 

13 

u 

23 

1003 

1090 

972 

5.67 

14 

It 

27 

1219 

1177 

1219 

5.57 

15 

11 

28 

1236 

1409 

1191 

4.14 

16 

u 

29 

1055 

988 

1072 

7.00 

17 

n 

30 

1384 

1460 

1344 

5.75 

18 

Feb. 

3 

1222 

1326 

1168 

5.57 

19 

it 

4 

1102 

1277 

1062 

6.17 

20 

(( 

5 

1238 

1364 

1184 

6.14 

21 

K 

6 

1361 

1684 

1362 

6.33 

22 

a 

9 

1451 

1618 

1433 

3.14 

23 

a 

10 

1553 

1624 

1387 

4.86 

24 

i( 

11 

1606 

1936 

1487 

4.43 

25 

a 

12 

1672 

1581 

1684 

4.57 

26 

u 

13 

1308 

1270 

1285 

4.43 

27 

u 

16 

1636 

1690 

1637 

4.29 

28 

li 

17 

1612 

1656 

1534 

4.14 

29 

11 

18 

1471 

1371 

1436 

3.71 

30 

li 

19 

1506 

1830 

1485 

4.00 

31 

11 

20 

1627 

1845 

1554 

3.71 

32 

li 

24 

1347 

1480 

1285 

4.33 

33 

li 

25 

1314 

1642 

1277 

3.60 

34 

Mar 

19 

1576 

1624 

1530 

3.50 

35 

li 

20 

1622 

1804 

1565 

3.00 

36 

li 

23 

1389 

1515 

1349 

5.00 

37 

a 

24 

1486 

1842 

1392 

3.83 

38 

a 

25 

1606 

1661 

1447 

5.00 

39 

li 

26 

1509 

1812 

1449 

3.17 

40 

li 

27 

1449 

1868 

1256 

4.20 

41 

a 

30 

1331 

1703 

1255 

3.57 

42 

a 

31 

1369 

1491 

1335 

4.43 

43 

Apr. 

1 

1374 

1500 

1291 

5.00 

44 

a 

2 

1163 

1228 

1116 

5.33 

45 

it 

3 

1020 

993 

1017 

5.17 

46 

a 

14 

1257 

1433 

1230 

4.83 

47 

ii 

15 

1212 

1224 

1204 

4.00 

48 

a 

16 

1332 

1507 

1310 

4.33 

Total 

62697 

68342 

60503 

241 . 41 

Aver. 

1306 

1424 

1260 

5.03 

24 


VISUAL   SENSE    TRAINING   IN    CHILDREN 


giving  a  long  reaction  time  of  three  or  four  seconds, 
were  asked  why  it  took  them  so  long  to  give  that 
judgment,  they  usually  answered:  ^'I  wanted  to  have 
a  good  look  at  it  [the  second  card]'';  '^I  can  tell  better 
if  I  look  at  it  longer";  or  ^'I  know  that  one  is  wrong, 
because  I  did  not  see  it  long  enough. "  These  answers 
also  indicate  that  long  reaction  times  were  spent  for 
purposes  of  visual  adjustment  or  adaptation. 

Table  4  and  Figure  4  show  the  same  thing  as  Table 
3  and  Figure  3,  only  in  an  abridged  way.  Instead  of 
the  average  daily  training  record,  the  average  records 
of  every  five  training  days  are  taken.  These  charts 
show  more  clearly  how  decrease  of  wrong  judgments  is 
accompanied  by  increase  of  reaction  time. 

TABLE  4 

Average  Reaction  Time  and  Number  of  Wrong  Judgments  in  every  Five 
Days,  Derived  from  Table  3 


Aver,  re- 

Aver, re- 

Aver, re- 

action 

action 

Aver. 

action 

number 

No.  of 

time  of 

time  of 

time  of 

of  wrong 

Trainings 

Date 

100  judg- 
ments 

wrong 
judg- 
ments 

right 
judg- 
ments 

judg- 
ments 

1  to    6 

Jan.     7  14 

1162 

1228 

1122 

7.26 

6"    11 

"     14-21 

1099 

1186 

1058 

5.54 

11  "    16 

"    21-29 

1047 

1105 

1037 

5.38 

16  "   21 

"     29  Feb.  6 

1200 

1283 

1166 

6.13 

21  "    26 

Feb.     6-13 

1529 

1689 

1471 

4.67 

26  "   31 

"     13  20 

1507 

1564 

1476 

4.12 

31  "   36 

"    20  Mar.  23 

1497 

1679 

1442 

3.63 

36  "   41 

Mar.  23  30 

1488 

1740 

1379 

4.24 

41  "   46 

"    30  Apr.  14 

1252 

1383 

1203 

4.70 

46  "   49 

Apr.   14  17 

1267 

1388 

1248 

4.39 

The  curves  show  four  phases  or  periods.  From  the 
first  to  the  fourteenth  training  the  subjects  found  it 
possible  to  reduce  wrong  judgments  and  also  the  re- 


NEW   EXPERIMENTAL   DATA  25 

action  time — fast  improvement  at  the  beginning,  fol- 
lowing the  general  law  of  learning;  from  the  fourteenth 
to  the  thirty-fourth  training  the  subjects  discovered 
that,  in  order  to  reduce  further  the  number  of  wrong 
judgments,  it  was  necessary  to  lengthen  their  reaction 
time;  and  from  the  thirty-fourth  training  to  the  forty- 
sixth  the  reaction  times  have  decreased  conjointly 
with  an  increase  of  the  number  of  wrong  judgments. 
This  third  period  was  a  time  of  discouragement. 
Some  of  the  children  were  withdrawn  on  the  ground 
that  they  were  not  well  up  with  the  class  in  their  studies. 
After  a  delay  of  three  weeks  a  readjustment  was  made 
and  the  experiment  continued  with  seven  subjects. 
That  these  subjects  did  not  do  their  best  work  is 
probable  from  the  increased  number  of  wrong  judg- 
ments and  the  decreased  reaction  time.  Spring  vaca- 
tion from  April  4  to  14  caused  another  interruption 
in  the  experiment.  The  last  period,  from  the  14th 
to  the  17th  of  April,  was  covered  with  the  under- 
standing by  the  subjects  that  these  trainings  would 
be  the  last  ones.  The  decrease  of  the  number  of 
wrong  judgments  and  the  increase  of  reaction  time  is 
very  noticeable. 

In  the  curves  the  reader  will  find  places  where 
increased  reaction  times  do  not  correspond  to  de- 
crease of  wrong  judgments.  This  can  be  explained 
by  the  fact  that  the  reactions  of  the  different  subjects 
were  not  the  same;  some  of  them  took  two  or  three 
times  as  long  as  did  others  to  give  a  judgment.  The 
absence  of  a  subject  whose  reaction  time  was  longer 
than  the  others  would  have  brought  the  curve  of 
averages  lower  than  normal  while  the  absence  of  a 
subject  whose  reaction  time  was  shorter  than  the 
others  would  have  made  the  curve  run  higher  than 


26  VISUAL   SENSE    TRAINING    IN   CHILDREN 

normal.  The  same  individual  differences  were  shown 
in  the  number  of  wrong  judgments.  Some  subjects 
have  four  or  five  times  as  many  wrong  judgments  as 
do  others.  The  absences  caused  some  irregularity. 
As  a  whole,  it  is  shown  clearly  that  decrease  of  wrong 
judgment  is  accompanied  by  increase  of  reaction  time. 

Summary  of  the  Training  Period 

1.  With  seven  subjects,  averaging  403^2  trainings 
each,  and  covering  a  period  of  over  three  months,  the 
wrong  judgments  of  vertical  lines  that  ranged  between 
1%  and  \}/^  inches  by  a  constant  difference  of  V^o  of 
an  inch,  decreased  40.01  per  cent,  accompanied  by  an 
increased  reaction  time  of  14.70  per  cent. 

2.  The  decrease  of  wrong  judgments  seems  to  have 
been  brought  about  by  the  increased  reaction  time, 
(1)  because  the  decrease  in  number  of  wrong  judg- 
ments went  hand  in  hand  with  a  longer  reaction  time; 
and  (2)  because,  according  to  the  statements  of  the 
subjects,  a  longer  reaction  time  was  favorable  to 
better  visual  adaptation. 

3.  Visual  discrimination  in  children  seems  to  improve 
very  slowly. 

The  Tested  Functions 

The  functions  tested  were  three — the  discrimination 
of  pitch,  the  discrimination  of  shades  of  color,  and  the 
discrimination  of  size.  These  functions  were  tested 
both  before  and  after  the  training  with  line-lengths. 
For  comparison,  the  results  of  the  preliminary  test 
taken  before  training,  and  the  final  test  taken  after 
training,  are  both  treated  here. 

The  experiment  started  with  eleven  subjects  in  each 
of  the  trained  and  the  untrained  groups.     Only  seven 


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28  VISUAL   SENSE    TRAINING   IN   CHILDREN 

subjects  in  the  trained  group  completed  the  training 
and  only  six  of  the  untrained  group  were  ready  to  take 
the  final  test.  In  the  following  tables  the  difference 
between  the  trained  and  the  untrained  groups,  that  is, 
the  average  amount  of  improvement  of  the  seven 
trained  subjects,  minus  the  average  amount  of  improve- 
ment of  the  six  untrained  subjects,  is  considered  im- 
provement due  to  training.  Owing  to  the  extended 
period  the  experiment  covered,  it  was  thought  that 
the  change  of  season  from  winter  to  spring,  and  the 
variation  in  the  daily  study  program  of  the  subjects 
might  affect  the  success  of  the  test.  For  this  reason, 
as  has  been  explained  in  the  introduction,  a  control 
group  of  three  was  selected  to  take  the  test  for  the 
first  time  when  the  other  two  groups  were  taking  their 
final  test.  It  was  thought  that,  if  these  changed 
conditions  were  more  favorable,  the  control  group 
would  be  more  successful  than  the  two  other  groups 
with  their  preliminary,  and  if  the  changed  conditions 
were  less  favorable,  the  control  group  would  be  less 
successful.  The  three  subjects  forming  the  control 
group  were  all  excellent  pupils,  ahead  in  their  studies, 
and  therefore  could  afford  the  time  to  take  the  test. 
Since  they  were  the  only  available  ones  at  the  time, 
they  were  taken,  notwithstanding  their   superiority. 

1 .  Discrimination  of  Pitch 

The  preliminary  part  of  this  test  was  given  on  Octo- 
ber 15,  16  and  17,  1913,  the  final  part  on  April  17,  20 
and  21,  1914,  i.  e.,  after  an  interval  of  five  months.  A 
pair  of  Koenig  tuning  forks,  each  of  which  possessed  a 
vibration  rate  of  256  a  second,  was  used.  In  order  to 
vary  the  pitches  by  small  steps  a  brass  rider  was  made 
for  one  of  the  tuning  forks,  so  as  to  be  set  at  any  place 


NEW   EXPERIMENTAL   DATA  29 

on  one  arm  of  the  fork  by  a  set  screw.  As  the  rider 
moved  httle  by  little  towards  the  resonance  box  the 
two  tuning  forks  approached  nearer  and  nearer  in 
pitch;  as  it  moved  away  from  the  resonance  box  the 
difference  of  the  two  tuning  forks  grew  larger.  A  metric 
scale  was  used  to  set  the  rider,  which  was  moved  5 
millimeters  at  a  time.  The  beats  that  the  two  tuning 
forks  produced  per  minute,  as  the  rider  was  moved 
from  the  end  of  the  tuning  fork  toward  the  resonance 
box,  were  as  shown  in  Table  6. 

The  840,  655  and  575  beats  were  counted  from  tone- 
recorder  records  and  the  rest  of  them  were  counted 
accurately  by  a  stop-watch. 

TABLE  6 

Results  from  Testing  the  Forks   Used  for  Pitch  Discrimination 

Position  of  the  Rider  Beats  Per  Minute 


1 

0  mm. 

from  end  of  the  tuning  fork 

840  beats 

2 

5 

ti 

(( 

11 

11 

il 

11 

il 

665     " 

3 

10 

11 

(< 

li 

li 

11 

11 

il 

575     " 

4 

15 

u 

a 

li 

a 

a 

It 

li 

480     " 

5 

20 

il 

11 

il 

il 

li 

11 

it 

420     " 

6 

25 

n 

11 

11 

11 

a 

11 

11 

385     " 

7 

30 

a 

il 

11 

11 

11 

11 

il 

360    " 

8 

35 

(I 

11 

11 

il 

li 

11 

11 

335    " 

9 

40 

il 

11 

u 

11 

il 

il 

11 

305    " 

10 

45 

a 

11 

il 

11 

il 

il 

li 

275    " 

11 

50 

u 

11 

a 

li 

il 

11 

il 

250    " 

12 

55 

(I 

11 

il 

il 

il 

11 

il 

215    " 

13 

60 

(< 

li 

li 

il 

11 

a 

li 

185    " 

14 

65 

(I 

il 

li 

11 

li 

11 

11 

155    " 

15 

70 

i( 

11 

li 

li 

li 

il 

It 

138    " 

16 

75 

i( 

li 

il 

li 

il 

11 

It 

115    " 

17 

80 

C( 

li 

li 

11 

11 

11 

it 

90    " 

18 

85 

11 

a 

il 

11 

li 

11 

il 

78    " 

19 

90 

li 

li 

11 

li 

11 

11 

11 

62    " 

20 

95 

a 

il 

a 

li 

11 

11 

11 

50    " 

21 

100 

(I 

li 

il 

11 

11 

li 

il 

40    " 

22 

105 

u 

il 

a 

li 

li 

il 

11 

30    " 

23 

110 

a 

11 

li 

il 

a 

il 

li 

22    " 

24 

115 

il 

11 

il 

il 

11 

11 

11 

15    " 

30  VISUAL   SENSE    TRAINING   IN    CHILDREN 

In  the  actual  tests  of  discrimination  the  rider  was 
moved  24  times  towards  the  resonance  box  from  the 
end  of  the  tuning  fork  and  24  times  in  the  opposite 
direction,  which  brought  it  back  again  to  the  end  of 
the  fork.  Five  judgments  were  given  for  each  move 
of  the  rider,  making  altogether  240  judgments. 

To  finish  the  240  judgments  three  sittings  were 
necessary.  On  the  first  day  the  subjects  made  60 
judgments,  beginning  with  the  larger  differences 
from  1  to  13,  Table  6;  on  the  second  day  the  subjects 
made  another  60  judgments,  beginning  with  difference 
13  and  ending  with  difference  24;  and  on  the  last  day 
the  process  was  reversed, — this  time  beginning  with 
the  smaller  differences  of  the  tuning  forks  and  working 
towards  larger  differences,  from  24  backwards  to  1. 
The  first  two  sittings  took  about  twelve  minutes  each, 
the  last  sitting  about  twenty  minutes.  Buring  the 
experiment  the  subjects  sat  at  an  average  distance 
of  ten  feet  from  the  tuning  forks.  0n  a  desk  in  front 
of  each  subject  was  a  pencil  and  a  typewritten  sheet 
on  which  was  printed  ^^A12345B12345C1234  5,'^ 
etc.,  ending  with  the  letter  X.  A,  B,  C,  etc.,  are  indi- 
cated in  Table  6  by  column  one,  1,  2,  3,  etc.,  1  corres- 
ponding to  A,  2  to  B,  and  so  on.  The  numerals  after 
each  letter  indicated  the  places  under  which  the  judg- 
ments were  to  be  written.  All  subjects  were  told  to 
record  their  judgments  with  reference  to  the  second  fork 
struck;  that  is,  if  this  sounded  lower  than  the  first 
fork,  they  were  to  write  under  the  numeral  an  I^; 
if  it  sounded  higher,  they  were  to  write  an  H.  To  be 
sure  that  every  subject  knew  what  to  do,  a  trial  sheet 
was  given  to  each  on  the  first  day  of  the  preliminary 
test.  The  subjects  were  seated  in  alternate  seats 
with  their  backs  towards  the  tuning  forks.     Though 


NEW   EXPERIMENTAL   DATA  31 

the  lower  fork  was  sounded  last  as  often  as  was  the 
higher,  the  order  in  which  they  followed  each  other 
was  irregular.  Thus  the  subjects  were  prevented 
from  copying  from  one  another,  from  anticipating 
which  was  the  low-toned  fork  and  from  foiming  any 
association  with  the  order  in  which  the  two  forks  were 
struck. 

The  forks  were  hung  near  the  center  of  the  room  with 
the  tines  down,  as  is  shown  in  Figure  5.  Both  reson- 
ance boxes  in  which  the  forks  were  set,  were  held  by 
string  loops  about  their  ends.  These  four  string  loops 
were  attached  to  a  wooden  bar  which  was  itself  hung 
from  the  ceiling.  In  this  way,  as  the  bar  turned,  the 
tuning  forks  exchanged  places  and  hence  there  was 
no  chance  of  the  subjects  associating  lower  or  higher 
pitches  with  direction  or  distance.  The  forks  were 
struck  by  a  solid  rubber-ball  hammer;  about  three 
seconds  after  the  first  fork  was  struck,  it  was  stopped 
with  the  hand  and  the  second  tuning  fork  was  struck. 
The  subjects  immediately  wrote  down  their  judgments, 
L  or  H.  While  they  were  doing  this,  the  operator 
made  his  preparation  for  the  next  trial,  and  then  an- 
nounced to  the  subjects  under  which  letter  and  numeral 
their  judgment  should  be  written  down.  In  front  of 
the  operator  was  a  sheet  of  paper  to  guide  him  regard- 
ing the  places  of  the  rider  and  the  order  of  the  high  or 
low  pitches  throughout  the  test.  By  constant  an- 
nouncement of  the  letters  and  numerals  the  subjects 
knew  whether  they  were  writing  down  their  judgments 
at  the  proper  places.  These  arrangements  were  fol- 
lowed in  both  the  preliminary  and  the  final  tests. 

The  results  of  the  test  are  shown  in  Tables  7 A,  7B 
and  7C.  On  account  of  the  absence  of  subject  XIII, 
there  were  only  five  left  in  the  untrained  group. 


32  VISUAL   SENSE   TRAINING   IN    CHILDREN 


Figure  5 


NEW   EXPERIMENTAL   DATA  33 

The  author  has  found  that  the  auditoiy  sense  in 
children  fatigues  easily.  The  first  two  sittings  took 
about  12  minutes  each,  and  the  last  sitting  took  about 
18  minutes,  in  both  the  preliminary  and  final  tests. 
It  will  be  noticed  from  Table  7A  that,  as  the  pitch 
of  the  two  tuning  forks  decreased  in  difference,  no 
subject  escaped  from  making  wrong  judgments.  This, 
not  only  because  towards  the  end  of  the  test  the  dif- 
ferences in  pitch  became  smaller,  but  also  because  the 
subjects  were  getting  fatigued.  That  this  was  the 
fact  was  brought  out  by  the  record  of  the  second 
sitting.  When  the  differences  of  the  forks  continued 
to  decrease  from  the  first,  some  of  the  subjects  started 
in  with  no  mis  judgments,  although  mid  judgments 
had  already  begun  towards  the  last  of  the  first  sitting. 
Some  of  the  subjects  doubtless  would  not  have  made 
any  wrong  judgments,  had  it  not  been  for  fatigue. 
We  can  infer  this  from  the  fact  that,  as  the  process 
was  reversed  in  the  third  sitting,  subjects  I,  IV,  XIV 
and  XV  made  no  wrong  judgments.  It  is  even  prob- 
able that  some  of  them  can  distinguish  differences  of 
less  than  15  beats  a  minute,  .4  vibration.  Fatigue,  in 
the  third  sitting,  though  it  did  not  interfere  with  these 
subjects,  was  a  handicap  for  the  rest.  These  other 
subjects  continued  their  mis  judgments  beyond  the 
point  where  their  judgments  were  still  right  in  the 
first  two  sittings.  This  raising  of  the  threshold  as 
the  difference  of  the  forks  became  larger  and  larger 
was  doubtless  due  to  fatigue. 

In  Table  7A  it  will  be  seen  that  both  trained  and 
untrained  groups  have  lowered  their  thresholds — the 
place  where  the  difference  of  the  tuning  forks  was  just 
distinguishable.  However,  the  trained  group  gained 
33.43  per  cent  more  than  the  untrained  as  the  tuning 


34 


VISUAL   SENSE   TRAINING   IN   CHILDREN 


TABLE  7 

A .  Point  at  which  Subjects  began  to  Make  Wrong  Judgments,  as  Indi- 
cated by  the  Number  of  Beats  per  Minutes 


Trained  Group 

Preliminary  Test 

Final  Test 

Improvement 

Subjects 

Decreas- 

Increas 

Decreas- 

Increas- 

Decreas- 

Increas- 

ing 

ing 

ing 

ing 

ing 

ing 

I 

180 

0 

78 

0 

102 

0 

II 

575 

575 

78 

335 

497 

240 

III 

840 

840 

840 

840 

0 

0 

IV 

360 

0 

62 

420 

298 

—420 

V 

60 

480 

155 

250 

—95 

230 

VI 

385 

385 

90 

50 

295 

335 

VII 

840 

385 

385 

360 

455 

25 

Total 

3240 

2665 

1688 

2255 

1552 

410 

Per  cent 

47.90 

15.38 

Average 

463 

381 

241 

322 

Untrained  Group 

VIII 

665 

840 

575 

585 

90 

225 

IX 

840 

840 

840 

840 

0 

0 

X 

15 

785 

335 

305 

—320 

480 

IX 

840 

840 

305 

360 

535 

480 

XII 

335 

385 

250 

250 

85 

135 

Total 

2695 

3690 

2305 

2340 

390 

1350 

Per  cent 

14.47 

36.58 

Average 

539 

738 

461 

468 

Per  cent  of  Transfer 

33.43 

—21.20 

Control  Group 

XIV 

'      22 

0 

XV 

250 

0 

XVI 

115 

50 

Total 

387 

50 

Average 

129 

17 

NEW   EXPERIMENTAL   DATA 


35 


TABLE  7 
B.  Number  of  Wrong  Judgments  Made  by  Subjects 

Trained  Group 


Preliminary  Test 

Final  Test 

Improvement 

High 

High 

High 

Low  fork 

fork 

Low  fork 

fork 

Low  fork 

fork 

Subjects 

struck 

struck 

struck 

struck 

struck 

struck 

last 

last 

last 

last 

last 

last 

I 

6 

4 

3 

2 

3 

2 

II 

32 

26 

15 

3 

17 

23 

III 

63 

66 

54 

59 

9 

7 

IV 

7 

4 

9 

18 

—2 

—14 

V 

2 

2 

1 

8 

1 

-6 

VI 

8 

10 

6 

10 

2 

0 

VII 

44 

22 

21 

40 

23 

—18 

Total 

162 

134 

109 

140 

53 

-6 

Per  cent 

32.72 

-4.48 

Average 

23 

19 

16 

20 

Untrained  Group 

VIII 

38 

35 

39 

14 

-1 

21 

IX 

91 

17 

35 

42 

56 

—25 

X 

11 

12 

24 

13 

-13 

—1 

XI 

60 

40 

30 

29 

30 

11 

XII 

6 

13 

8 

17 

—2 

-4 

Total 

206 

117 

136 

115 

70 

2 

Per  cent 

33.98 

1.71 

Average 

41 

23 

27 

23 

Per  cent 

of  Transfer 

—1.26 

-  6.19 

Control  Group 

XIV 

5 

3 

XV 

4 

5 

XVI 

8 

3 

Total 

17 

11 

Average 

6 

4 

36 


VISUAL   SENSE   TRAINING   IN    CHILDREN 


TABLE  7 

C    Toted  Percentage  of  Successes  Made  by  the  Subjects,  2j^  Trials  Taken  as 

the  Basis 

Trained  Group 


Subjects 

Preliminary  Test 

Final  Test 

Improvement 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

I 

97.50 

98.33 

98.75 

99.17 

1.25 

.84 

II 

86.67 

89.17 

93.75 

98.75 

7.08 

9.58 

III 

73.75 

72.50 

77.50 

75.42 

3.75 

2.92 

IV 

97.08 

98.33 

96.25 

92.50 

—  .83 

—5.83 

V 

99.17 

99.17 

99.58 

96.67 

.41 

—2.50 

VI 

96.67 

95.83 

97.50 

95.83 

.83 

0 

VII 

81.67 

90.83 

91.25 

83.33 

9.58 

—7.50 

Total 

632.51 

644.16 

654.58 

641.67 

22.07 

—2.49 

Average 

3.15 

—  .36 

Untrained  Group 

VIII 

84.17 

85.42 

83.75 

94.17 

—  .42 

8.75 

IX 

62.08 

92.92 

85.42 

92.50 

23.34 

—10.42 

X 

95.42 

95.00 

90.00 

94.58 

-5.42 

-.42 

XI 

75.00 

83.33 

87.50 

87.92 

12.50 

4.59 

XII 

97.50 

94.58 

96.67 

92.92 

—  .83 

—1.66 

Total 

414.17 

451.25 

443.34 

452.09 

29.17 

.84 

Average 

5.83 

.17 

Transfer 

—2.68 

—  .53 

Columns  1,  3  and  5  indicate  percentage  of  success  when  the  low 
tuning  fork  was  struck  last. 

Columns  2,  4  and  6  indicate  percentage  of  success  when  the  high 
tuning  fork  was  struck  last. 


forks  decreased  in  difference  and  showed  a  compar- 
ative loss  of  21.20  per  cent  as  they  increased  in  dif- 
ference. So  far  as  the  lowering  of  the  threshold  is 
concerned,  the  result  shows  a  greater  improvement  in 
the  trained  group.  This  finding  seems  to  be  in  accord 
with  a  previous  experiment  performed  by  Bennett, 


NEW   EXPERIMENTAL   DATA  37 

who  trained  sixteen  children  of  eleven  years  of  age  ^4n 
discriminating  different  saturations  of  blue"  and  tested 
them  in  their  ''other  sense  powers  in  discriminating 
different  mixtures  of  (1)  red  and  white,  (2)  yellow  and 
green,  (3)  orange  and  black."  The  training  lasted 
five  months  with  two  half-hour  periods  each  week. 
''There  was  also  a  preliminary  test  in  distinguishing 
pitches."  In  this  last  test  the  Gilbert  tone-tester  was 
employed.  "F  sharp  was  taken  as  the  norm,  and  the 
method  employed,  that  of  minimal  gradations.  As 
the  figures  (See  Table  10)  present  it,  the  sharpness 
went  from  a  range  of  4.4  points  at  the  first  test — each 
point  representing  an  eighth  of  the  distance  from  F  to 
F  sharp,  or  F  sharp  to  G — to  one  of  3.5  at  the  last 
test  with  the  boys,  or  a  gain  of  20%;  and  from  5.3 
points  to  4.1  points  for  the  girls,  or  a  gain  of  about 
23%. "1^  This  large  gain  may  be  accounted  for  by  the 
want  of  a  control  group  of  untrained  subjects.  In  the 
present  experiment  the  trained  group  made  an  even 
greater  gain,  47.90  per  cent  in  the  upper  threshold,  as 
the  difference  in  pitch  decreased,  and  15.38  per  cent  in 
the  lower  threshold,  as  the  difference  in  pitch  increased. 
But  even  such  a  large  gain  as  this  becomes  practically 
insignificant  when  it  is  compared  with  the  gain  of  the 
untrained  group.  It  seems  unjustifiable  to  conclude 
from  such  results  that  training  is  general. 

Another  experiment  of  a  similar  nature  was  performed 
by  Coover  and  Angell.  "Four  reagents  were  trained 
in  discrimination  of  intensities  of  sound  for  17  days 
during  an  interval  of  57  days.  Each  reagent  made  40 
judgments  in  each  day's  training.  Before  and  after 
training  the  reagents  were  tested  in  the  discrimination 
of  shades  of  gray,  each  test  consisting  of  three  series. 


"  Bennett,  C.  J.  C,  Formal  Discipline,  p.  62. 


38  VISUAL   SENSE   TRAINING   IN   CHILDREN 

each  containing  35  judgments,  delivered  on  3  separate 
days."i»  Their  three  subjects  made  4,  6,  and  0  points 
of  improvement,  respectively.  Judging  from  the 
number  of  judgments  given  to  the  reagents,  the  per- 
centage of  gain  can  not  be  very  large.  And  they  end 
their  report  by  saying:  ''Our  conclusion  from  the 
experiment,  therefore,  is  that  efficiency  of  sensible 
discrimination  acquired  by  training  with  sound  stimuli 
has  been  transferred  to  the  efficiency  of  discriminating 
brightness  stimuli,  and  that  the  factors  in  this  transfer 
are  due  in  great  part  to  habituation  and  to  a  more 
economic  adaptation  of  attention,  i.  e.,  are  general, 
rather  than  special  in  character.^'"  There  is  possible 
no  direct  comparison  between  the  present  experiment 
and  that  of  Coover  and  Angell,  who  used  adults  as  sub- 
jects, trained  them  in  auditory,  and  tested  them  in 
visual  sensitivity,  whereas  the  writer  used  children, 
trained  them  in  visual  and  tested  them  in  auditory 
sensitivity. 

In  reference  to  the  number  of  wrong  judgments 
presented  in  Table  7B,  the  decreases  of  the  trained 
group  were  so  small,  no  matter  which  is  taken  for 
the  basis  of  calculation — the  number  of  wrong  judg- 
ments (Table  7B)  or  the  total  amount  of  success 
(Table  7C) — that  it  is  doubtful  whether  they  are 
really  of  importance.  Mere  chance  might  have 
caused  that  much  difference.  The  control  group  is 
useless  for  purposes  of  comparison,  because  of  the 
superior  ability  of  the  subjects. 


"  Coover,  J.  E.,  and  Angell,  F.,  General  Practice  Effect  of  Special 
Exercise,  Am.  Jour.  Psych.,   Vol.  18.,  p.  331. 
»  Ibid.,  p.  334. 


NEW   EXPERIMENTAL   DATA  39 

Summary  for  Pitch  Discrimination 

1.  In  auditory  discrimination  children  show  signs 
of  fatigue  very  quickly.  Probably  12  minutes  is  too 
long  a  sitting  for  an  average  child  of  about  ten. 

2.  There  is  no  positive  evidence  from  our  experiment 
that  efficiency  in  visual  discrimination  is  transferred 
to  efficiency  in  auditory  discrimination. 

2.  Discrimination  of  Shades  of  Color 

It  seemed  impossible  to  dye  any  paper  with  gradual 
saturations  of  color  and  keep  these  shades  permanent, 
so  shades  of  color  in  solution  were  used  instead.  Potas- 
sium bichromate,  20%  H2SO4  +  20%  K2Cr207,  which 
gives  a  beautiful  orange  color,  fitted  the  purpose 
very  well,  and  test  tubes  of  a  uniform  size  (?4  inch) 
were  used.  After  they  had  been  carefully  washed 
and  chemically  cleaned,  each  tube  was  filled  with  15 
cubic  centimeters  of  water.  Various  numbers  of 
drops  of  the  potassium  bichromate  were  put  into  these 
test  tubes  by  means  of  a  pipette.  Then  they  were 
sealed  by  melting  the  open  end,  and  labeled. 

This  test  was  divided  into  two  sittings  of  17  judg- 
ments each,  making  altogether  34  trials.  The  follow- 
ing shows  the  order  of  the  different  comparisons  during 
the  two  sittings. 

In  giving  this  test  the  writer  used  the  same  apparatus 
and  method  of  procedure  that  were  employed  in  the 
training.  Figures  6  and  7  show  the  general  arrange- 
ment. 

Test-tube  1  (see  Figure  6)  was  shown  first  for  three 
seconds  and  then,  by  a  pull  on  the  string  (12),  the  plate 
(4)  in  the  Cattell  Fall  (5)  was  dropped,  exposing  test- 
tube  2    (see  Figure  7)  and   covering  test-tube  1  by 


40 


VISUAL   SENSE    TRAINING    IN    CHILDREN 


Figure  6 


NEW   EXPERIMENTAL   DATA 


41 


Figure  7 


42  VISUAL  SENSE   TRAINING   IN    CHILDREN 


First  Sitting 

1.  Test-tube  with  11      drops  of  solution  shown  first,  then  test-tube  with  14  drops 

2          *t             "        1 V4      "  "  "  "  '*  "  "  "        1 V  ** 

A          «             "      24          "  "  "  "  "  "  "  "  2X  *' 

e            <(                «       yQ            <(  it  <<  <{  ((  it  (<  ((  />Q  (( 

g              <<                  «        QQ               <<  <<  «  <(  «  «  «  «  OQ  << 

y             «                 «          e             ((  ((  ((  ((  ((  tt  tt  tt          Q  (( 

Q             «                 «       AK             <<  <<  <<  «  <<  <<  <<  <<  err  (< 

q'            u                  «          21^        "  "  "  "  "  "  "  "           31^  " 

1Q                   <(                          <<           1 J^                    <(  ((  ((  (<  <<  «  ((  "11  " 

11  (<                 <(       on             (<  <<  <<  «  <<  «  «  «  00  •( 

12  "  "  fi  "  "  "  "  "  **  <*  "11  " 
23*  «  «  j^  it  it  tt  tt  tt  tt  tt  it  23^  " 
1^          «              <(      AK          tt  tt  tt  tt  it  tt  ft  II  oq  II 

15!         "             "      55          "  "  "  "  "  "  "  "  65 

tf*                tt                    tt            o                it  it  tt  tt  tt  tt  it  it            r  u 

1<7               tt                   tt               \y         tt  it  it  it  tt  tt  it  a            1  L^  " 

Second  Sitting 

18.  Test-tube  with  33      drops  of  solution  shown  first,  then  test-tube  with  39  drops 

t  it  it  it  it  it  It  (<  C=  << 

(  <(  «  ((  tt  tt  tt  l(  <?/A  << 

(  tt  tt  tt  tt  tt  tt  it                 Q  (< 

<  tt  tt  tt  it  it  ti  il  no  li 

i  II  ti  it  tt  tt  H  ii             r  .< 

(  ((  it  tt  it  ti  it  li  ■t'J  il 

I  It  tt  tt  it  ti  it  II          9V<>  " 

(  tt  it  it  It  ti  it  11  20  *' 

I  ((  it  it  if  it  it  it  24  '' 

(  ((  ((  l(  <(  it  it  It  -14  it 

I  tt  it  tt  it  it  it  it  A^  it 

t  tt  tt  tt  tt  tt  tt  tt        3V^  " 

c  ((  ((  tt  tt  tt  it  ii  24  " 

(  (<  ((  <(  a  a  it  ft           IV^  " 

(  ((  <(  It  it  tt  it  ti  20  " 

I  It  <(  tt  tt  tt  it  <(  ly  <( 


19. 

65 

20. 

60 

21. 

11 

22. 

28 

23. 

3H 

24. 

20 

25. 

.    SH 

26. 

24 

27. 

28 

28. 

17 

29. 

55 

30. 

5 

31. 

20 

32. 

2^ 

33. 

17 

34. 

14 

NEW   EXPERIMENTAL   DATA  43 

bringing  up  plate  cover  3.  As  in  the  training,  the 
judgment  was  given  in  terms  of  the  second  stimulus. 
The  subject  would  say  '' darker,"  meaning  that  he 
thought  it  was  more  saturated  than  the  first  test-tube 
shown;  or  'lighter,"  meaning  less  saturated.  To  get 
the  reaction  time,  the  lip-key  and  chronoscope  were 
again  used.  Three  tungsten  lights  of  40  watts  each 
were  arranged  behind  a  large  plate  of  milk  glass  (9) 
so  that  a  uniformly  illuminated  background  was  given 
to  the  test  tubes.  All  other  lights  were  removed  from 
the  inside  of  the  canopy  which  covered  the  experiment 
table. 

The  result  of  this  test  is  presented  in  Table  8.  While 
the  trained  group  shows  only  a  slight  improvement  in 
right  judgments,  the  untrained  group  shows  an  im- 
provement of  25  per  cent  more.  This  can  only  be 
accounted  for  by  the  increased  reaction  time  of  the 
untrained  group.  It  confirms  our  finding  in  the  train- 
ing, namely  that  the  way  to  reduce  the  number  of 
wrong  judgments  in  sense  discrimination  is  to  lengthen 
the  reaction  time.  It  will  be  noticed  that  the  loss  was 
greatest  in  the  reaction  time  of  wiong  judgments  in 
the  untrained  group.  This  indicates  that  these  sub- 
jects employed  more  time  in  judging  difficult  cases  of 
comparison.  Whenever  this  was  done,  here  or  in  the 
training,  the  number  of  wrong  judgments  was  always 
smaller.  Subjects  VIII,  X,  and  XIII  reduced  their 
number  of  wrong  judgments  considerably  by  lengthen- 
ing their  reaction  time  two  or  three  fold  in  the  final  test. 
With  Subject  XI  the  lengthening  of  reaction  time  was 
not  found,  though  her  improvement  was  the  greatest 
of  all.  This  is  because  in  her  preliminary  test  she 
had  a  number  of  long  reaction  times  due  to  difficulty 
in  using  the  lip-key  and  these  longer  times  have  in- 
creased her  average  reaction  time  unduly. 


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NEW   EXPERIMENTAL   DATA  45 

The  question  naturally  arises:  Why  did  not  the 
subjects  of  the  trained  group  use  more  time,  after 
having  had  the  special  benefit  of  the  training?  The 
answer  is  that  the  subjects  of  the  trained  group  were 
growing  tired  of  the  experiment;  its  novelty  was  lost 
in  the  three  months'  training.  They  seemed  to  be 
unwilling  to  give  the  necessary  time  needed  to  visual 
adaptation,  and  in  many  cases  they  seemed  to  have 
left  it  to  chance  whether  they  were  right  or  wrong  in 
their  judgments.  On  the  other  hand,  the  subjects  of 
the  untrained  group  seemed  to  be  only  too  glad  to 
have  a  change  in  their  daily  program,  to  come  to  the 
experiment  room  once  more,  especially  at  the  begin- 
ning of  the  ret  est.  In  none  of  the  tests,  preliminary 
or  final,  were  the  subjects  of  either  group  told  of  the 
rightness  or  wrongness  of  their  judgments,  as  were  the 
members  of  the  trained  group  in  the  course  of  their 
training.  This  only  made  the  trained  group  all  the 
more  unconcerned  at  the  beginning  of  the  retest.  In 
a  word,  interest  is  quite  essential  for  success  in  sense 
discrimination  in  children,  for  they  must  be  willing  to 
give  their  time  for  purposes  of  sensory  adaptation. 

Summary  for  Discrimination  of  Color 

1.  This  test  confirms  the  finding  in  the  training, 
that  lengthened  reaction  time  is  the  means  to  reduce 
the  number  of  wrong  judgments  in  visual  discrimina- 
tion. 

2.  Interest  is  essential  for  sense  discrimination  in 
children  that  they  may  give  the  time  necessary  for 
better  visual  adaptation. 


46  VISUAL   SENSE   TRAINING   IN    CHILDREN 

3.  Discrimination  of  Size 

The  tested  functions  included  not  only  discrimina- 
tions of  color  and  pitch  but  also  discriminative 
functions  more  closely  related  to  those  in  which  train- 
ing had  been  given.  The  subjects  had  been  trained 
in  discriminating  vertical  lines  ranging  from  1^  to 
1%  inches  long  with  a  difference  of  Vso  of  an  inch. 
Before  and  after  this  training,  a  test  was  taken  not 
only  with  the  same  sizes  as  in  the  training,  but  also  with 
one  set  of  larger  sizes,  ranging  from  2Vio  to  2%  inches, 
and  one  set  of  smaller  sizes,  ranging  from  %  to  1  inch. 
These  different  sizes  were  also  drawn  in  different  forms, 
namely,  as  circles,  triangles  and  horizontal  lines  as 
well  as  vertical  lines.  The  differences  to  be  discrimi- 
nated in  these  various  sizes  were  not  the  same;  in  the 
size  ranging  from  2^10  to  2%  inches,  the  difference  to 
be  disci  iminated  was  Vio  of  an  inch ;  for  the  size  ranging 
from  %  to  1  inch,  V20  of  an  inch;  and  from  1}4  to  1% 
inches,  the  same  size  in  which  training  has  been  given, 
there  were  two  sets  of  differences  to  be  discriminated — 
one  set,  which  included  all  the  various  forms,  had  a 
difference  of  Vii  of  an  inch;  the  other,  which  included 
only  the  circles,  triangles  and  horizontal  lines,  had  a 
difference  of  Vso  of  an  inch.  Vertical  lines  with  a 
difference  of  Vso  of  an  inch  were  used  only  for  the  train- 
ing and  were  excluded  from  the  testing.  Table  9 
gives  in  detail  the  various  sizes  in  different  forms  with 
the  various  differences  to  be  discriminated. 

It  will  be  noticed  that  the  trained  function  differed 
from  the  ''a"  series  only  in  form,  from  the  ''A,"  ''B," 
and  ^^C"  series  of  the  vertical  lines  only  in  size  and 
differences  to  be  discriminated,  from  all  the  ''B^' 
series  of  circles,  triangles  and  horizontal  lines  only  in 


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48  VISUAL   SENSE    TRAINING   IN   CHILDREN 

form  and  differences  to  be  discriminated,  and  from 
all  the  ^^A"  and  ''C'^  series  in  size,  form  and  differences 
to  be  discriminated.  It  is  easily  seen,  with  this  arrange- 
ment, that  the  vertical  line  series  was  most  close! v 
related  to  the  trained  function,  next  came  logically 
the  horizontal  lines,  the  triangles  and  circles,  in  accord- 
ance to  form;  with  reference  to  size,  that  ranging  from 
l}/i  to  1%  inches  was  the  most  closely  related  to  the 
training,  next  came  that  ranging  from  %  to  1  inch 
and  2Vio  to  2%  inches;  and  according  to  the  differences 
to  be  discriminated,  %o,  V20,  Vis  and  Vio  of  an  inch,  in  the 
order  stated. 

There  were  altogether  15  series  in  this  test,  as  shown 
in  Table  9,  making  15  sittings  for  each  subject.  These 
subjects  came  into  the  experiment  room  in  turn  for 
fifteen  minutes  in  the  morning  on  school  days  and 
made  ten  or  twenty  judgments  in  accordance  with  the 
different  series.  The  order  in  which  the  various  series 
followed  each  other  was  the  same  as  shown  in  Table  9. 
The  preliminary  test  lasted  from  November  4  to  De- 
cember 17,  1913,  the  final  from  April  28  to  May  17, 
1914.  Much  less  time  was  taken  during  the  final 
test,  because  of  the  dropping  out  of  four  subjects  from 
the  trained  group  and  five  from  the  untrained  group. 
The  hours  of  experiment  for  each  subject  were  kept 
as  nearly  as  possible  the  same  in  both  tests.  The 
general  method  and  apparatus  used  in  this  test  were 
the  same  as  those  used  in  the  training. 

The  results  of  the  test  are  presented  in  Tables  10, 
11,  12,  13,  and  14.  Table  10  shows  in  detail  how  the 
percentages  of  transfer  were  calculated.  What  each 
column  in  the  table  stands  for  is  explained  in  footnotes 
immediately  following  the  table.  The  various  amounts 
of  transfer  are  rearranged  in  Table  11  so  as  to  present 


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52  VISUAL   SENSE   TRAINING   IN   CHILDREN 

the  result  more  clearly.  It  will  be  noticed  in  Table  11 
that,  when  the  amount  of  transfer  is  arranged  accord- 
ing to  size,  Series  b,  in  which  the  range  of  size  is  the 
same  as  in  the  training,  has  only  about  17  per  cent  of 
transfer,  while  Series  c,  which  is  smaller  in  size  than 
that  of  the  training  material,  has  a  larger  amount  of 
transfer,  about  30  per  cent.  This  is  probably  ac- 
counted for  by  the  large  amount  of  negative  transfer 
of  horizontal  lines  B  in  Series  b.  Training  in  judging 
vertical  lines  probably  interferes  with  judging  hori- 
zontal lines,  as  the  same  result  is  shown  in  Table  11, 
(2),  where  the  amount  of  transfer  is  arranged  according 
to  form.  In  (2)  also  it  seems  clear  that  the  vertical 
lines,  in  which  form  the  training  has  been  given,  have 
the  largest  amount  of  transfer.  In  Table  11,  (3), 
where  the  amount  of  transfer  is  arranged  according 
to  the  differences  to  be  discriminated,  it  is  easy  to  see 
that  those  differences  that  are  farther  away  from  the 
training,  difference  of  Vio  or  Vis  of  an  inch,  have  a  smaller 
amount  of  transfer,  while  those  differences  that  are 
nearest  to  the  training,  V20  or  V30  of  an  inch,  have  a 
larger  amount  of  transfer.  On  the  whole,  it  is  safe 
to  say  that  those  series  which  are  most  closely 
related  to  the  trained  function  in  size,  form  and  differ- 
ences to  be  discriminated  have  a  larger  amount  of 
transfer,  with  the  exception  of  horizontal  lines. 

Table  12  is  arranged  to  show  how  the  wrong  judg- 
ments were  made  and  whether  the  training  caused 
any  change  in  making  such  judgments.  It  seems 
clear  that  all  the  groups  have  made  more  wrong  judg- 
ments when  the  second  stimulus  was  larger  in  size; 
that  is  to  say,  there  is  a  tendency  for  all  the  subjects 
to  underestimate  the  second  stimulus.  Or,  in  other 
words,  when  a  visual  stimulus  is  withdrawn,  it  will 


NEW   EXPERIMENTAL   DATA 


53 


TABLE  11 
Total  Amount  of  Transfer,  Arranged  according  to  Size,  Form,  and  the 
Magnitude  of  Differences  to  be  Discriminated.  From  Table  10 


(1)  Amount  of  transfer  as  arranged  according  to  size 

(a)  21/10 

to  2%  inches. 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

Circles                  A 

—142.85 

—28.34 

—25.26 

—5.01 

Triangles              " 

33.33 

—31.25 

—37.07 

—25.73 

Vertical  lines       " 

—11.03 

—37.99 

—31 .  77 

—64.52 

Horizontal  lines  " 

—44.96 

—12.73 

—31.82 

—28.52 

Total 

—165.51 

—110.31 

—125.92 

—113.76 

Average 

—41.38 

—27.58 

—31.48 

—28.44 

. 

(b)  VA  to  1%  inches 

Circles                 B 

72.50 

—40.93 

—38.99 

—19.36 

Triangles              " 

32.50 

—  .43 

—2.14 

13.15 

Vertical  lines       " 

36.67 

—  .66 

4.33 

—20.02 

Horizontal  lines  " 

—77.95 

—28.88 

—30.31 

—39.73 

Circles                   a 

41.30 

—29.96 

—24.18 

—40.91 

Triangles               " 

—4.26 

—10.69 

—14.06 

3.22 

Horizontal  lines  " 

18.00 

—22.34 

—18.45 

—16.42 

Total 

118.76 

—133.89 

—123.80 

—120.07 

Average 

16.97 

—19.13 

—17.69 

—17.15 

(c)  ^  to  1  inch 

Circles                 C 

12.59 

—1.71 

—4.89 

18.64 

Triangles             " 

11.11 

—21 .  65 

—41.34 

—28.26 

Vertical  lines       " 

75.00 

—36.60 

—52.56 

—13.80 

Horizontal  lines  " 

20.83 

—50.19 

—59.27 

—18.40 

Total 

119.53 

—110.15 

—158.06 

—41.82 

Average 

29.88 

—27.54 

—39.51 

—10.45 

(2)  Amount   ( 

of   transfer   as   arranged   according   to 

form 

(a) 

Circles 

Circles                  A 

—142.85 

—28.34 

—25.26 

5.01 

B 

72.50 

—40.93 

—38.99 

—19.36 

C 

12.59 

—1.71 

—4.89 

18.64 

a 

41.30 

—29.96 

—24.18 

—40.91 

Total 

—16.46 

—80.94 

—93.32 

—36.62 

Average 

—4.11 

—20.23 

—23.33 

9.15 

(b)  Triangles 

Triangles             A 

33.33 

—31.25 

—37.07 

—25.73 

B 

32.50 

—  .43 

—2.14 

13.15 

C 

11.11 

—21 .  65 

—41 .  34 

—28.26 

a 

—4.26 

—10.69 

—14.06 

3.22 

Total 

72.68 

—64.02 

—94.61 

—37.62 

Average 

18.17 

—16.00 

—23.65 

—9.40 

54 


VISUAL   SENSE    TEAINING   IN   CHILDREN 


TABLE  11— Continued 
(2)  Amount  of  transfer  as  arranged  according  to  form 


Vertical  lines 

<<  <( 

«  <( 

Total 
Average 


A 
B 
C 


—11.03 

36.67 

75.00 

100.64 

33.55 


(c)  Vertical  lines 

—37.99 

—  .66 

—36.60 

—75.25 

—25.08 


Horizontal  lines  A 

u  g 

"  "      a 

Total 
Average 


(d)  Horizontal  lines 


—44.96 

—77.95 

20.83 

18.00 

—84.08 


—12.73 

—28.88 

—50.19 

—22.34 

-114.14 


—21.02  —28.53 


—31.77 
4,.  33 
—52.56 
—80.00 
—26.67 

—31.82 
—30.31 
—59.27 
—18.45 
-139.85 
—34.96 


—64.52 
—20.02 
—13.80 
—98.34 
—32.78 

—28.52 
—39.73 
—18.40 
—16.42 
-103.07 
—25.77 


(3)  Amount  of  transfer  as  arranged  according  to  the  differences   to  be 

discriminated 


Ci  roles  A 

Triangles  " 

Vertical  lines  " 

Hor  izontal  lines  " 
Total 
Average 

Circles  B 

Triangles  " 

Vertical  lines  " 

Horizontal  lines  " 
Total 
Average 


(a)  Difference  of  Vio  of  an  inch 

.     —142.85  —28.34  —25.26 

33.33  —31.25  —37.07 

—11.03  —37.99  —31.77 

—44.96  —12.73  —31.82 

—165.51  —110.31  —125.92 

—41.38  —27.58  —31.48 

(b)  Difference  of  ¥15    of  an  inch 


72.50 
32.50 
36.67 
—77.95 
63.72 
15.93 


—40.93 

—  .43 

—  .66 

—28.88 
—70.90 
—17.72 


—38.99 
—2.14 
4.33 
—30.31 
—67.11 
—16.78 


(c)  Difference  of  ¥20  of  an  inch 


Circles  C  12.59  —1.71  —4.89 

Triangles  "  11.11  —21.65  —41.34 

Vertical  lines  "  75.00  —36.60  —52.56 

Horizontal  lines  "  20.83  —50.19  —59.27 

Total  •      119.53  —110.15  —158.06 

Average  29.88  —27.54  —39.51 

(d)  Difference  of  ^30  of  an  inch 

Circles  a  41.30  —29.96  —24.18 

Triangles  "  —4.26  —10.69  —14.06 

Horizontal  lines  "  18.00  —22.34  —18.45 

Total  55.04  —62.99  —56.69 

Average  18.35  —21.00  —18.90 


5.01 
—25.73 
—64.52 

—28.52 
-113.76 

—28.44 

—19.36 
13.15 
—20.02 
—39.73 
—65.96 
—16.49 

18.64 
—28.26 
—13.80 
—18.40 
—41.82 
—10.45 

—40.91 
3.22 
—16.42 
—54.11 
—18.04 


Column  2 — Transfer,  percentage  of  wrong  judgments. 

Column  3 — ■  Transfer,  percentage  of  average  reaction  time. 

Column  4 — Transfer,  percentage  of  average  reaction  time  of  right 
judgments  only. 

Column  5 — Transfer,  percentage  of  avelrage  reaction  time  of  wrong 
judgments  only. 


NEW   EXPERIMENTAL   DATA  55 

be  imagined  in  the  majority  of  cases  larger  than  it 
really  is.  In  regard  to  whether  training  has  caused 
any  changes  in  making  the  wrong  judgments,  the 
table  has  failed  to  show  any  marked  difference  between 
the  trained  and  the  untrained  groups.  Both  groups 
have  increased  their  number  of  over-estimations  of 
the  smaller  stimulus — the  trained,  from  118  to  129 
and  the  untrained,  from  118  to  144 — and  have  decreased 
their  number  of  under-estimations  of  the  larger  stimu- 
lus— the  trained,  from  185  to  141  and  the  untrained 
from  154  to  120. 

Table  13  gives  the  total  average  amount  of  transfer, 
taking  the  various  series  of  tests  as  a  whole.  It  is 
evident  that  the  amount  of  transfer  is  small  when  com- 
pared with  the  length  of  time  the  subjects  have  been 
trained,  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  these  various  series 
are  very  closely  related  to  the  function  trained.  Table 
13  also  indicates  that  the  improvement  due  to  transfer 
is  largely  a  result  of  lengthened  reaction  time.  The 
trained  group  gained  11.27  per  cent  of  correct  judg- 
ments at  the  expense  of  nearly  19  per  cent  of  time. 
On  the  other  hand,  the  untrained  group,  which  did 
not  lose  any  time,  had  a  small  amount  of  gain.  With 
the  control  group,  the  average  reaction  time  was  even 
larger  than  that  of  the  trained  group  in  their  final  test, 
which  may  account  for  their  making  the  lowest  number 
of  wrong  judgments  of  all  the  three  groups.  The 
reason  why  the  control  group  should  have  spent  more 
time  and  made  fewer  wrong  judgments  is  partly  ex- 
plained by  the  fact  that  they  were  more  capable  pupils 
and  made  fewer  wrong  judgments  throughout  all  the 
tests.  In  addition  to  this,  the  test  was  more  of  a 
novelty  to  them  than  to  the  other  two  groups,  and 
hence  they  were  willing  to  give  to  the  judgments  the 


56 


VISUAL   SENSE    TRAINING   IN    CHILDREN 


full  time  that  seemed  to  them  necessary.  Table  13 
shows  very  plainly  that,  as  the  various  series  of  the 
test  went  on,  there  was  shown  by  all  the  three  groups  a 
general  decrease  of  reaction  time  and  an  increase  of 
wrong  judgments.  As  in  the  training,  this  was  an 
indication  of  lack  of  interest  in  the  experiment.  How- 
ever, the  decrease  of  reaction  time  can  account  for 
only  part  of  the  increase  in  wrong  judgments  as  the 
various  series  went  on.     The  smaller  forms  and  the 


TABLE  12 
Wrong  Judgments  Made  by  the  Three  Groups,  Before  and  After  Training 


Preliminary  Test 

Final  Test 

Trained 

Untrained 

Trained 

Untrained 

Control 

Column 

Group 

Group 

Group 

Group 

Group 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

Test  Series 

Circle 

A 

4 

3 

8 

6 

7 

4 

2 

0 

1 

4 

Circle 

B 

4 

6 

3 

5 

6 

3 

2 

11 

0 

5 

Circle 

C 

1 

12 

4 

7 

6 

3 

4 

5 

0 

2 

Triangle 

A 

9 

9 

3 

7 

9 

3 

6 

4 

2 

3 

Triangle 

B 

7 

9 

4 

6 

10 

4 

7 

5 

1 

1 

Triangle 

C 

3 

6 

4 

5 

10 

3 

10 

4 

3 

1 

Vertical 

A 

9 

7 

8 

9 

7 

6 

4 

9 

0 

4 

Vertical 

B 

4 

5 

5 

5 

2 

1 

5 

2 

0 

1 

Vertical 

C 

11 

9 

4 

4 

5 

10 

8 

4 

3 

2 

Horiz.  L. 

A 

7 

10 

6 

8 

12 

9 

6 

5 

4 

5 

Horiz.  L. 

B 

7 

6 

3 

12 

12 

12 

11 

5 

4 

2 

Horiz.  L. 

C 

6 

10 

4 

8 

8 

6 

8 

5 

6 

3 

Circle 

a 

18 

28 

22 

19 

4 

23 

16 

25 

4 

8 

Triangle 

a 

16 

27 

25 

22 

14 

30 

30 

15 

12 

7 

Horiz.  L. 

a 

12 

38 

15 

31 

17 

24 

25 

21 

13 

12 

Total 

118 

185 

118 

154 

129 

141 

144 

120 

53 

60 

Columns  1,  3,  5,  7,  9  indicate  wrong  judgments  made  when  the 
second  stimulus  was  smaller  in  size,  or  an  over-estimation  of  the  smaller 
stimulus. 

Columns  2,  4,  6,  8,  10  indicate  wrong  judgments  made  when  the 
second  stimulus  was  larger  in  size,  or  an  under-estimation  of  the  larger 
stimulus. 

The  same  arrangement  is  followed  in  the  next  table,  13. 


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58  NEW   EXPERIMENTAL   DATA 

smaller  differences  to  be  discriminated  also  caused  an 
increased  number  of  wrong  judgments.  The  "sl^^ 
series,  having  the  smallest  differences  to  be  discrim- 
inated, had  the  largest  number  of  wrong  judgments. 
Since  all  the  ^'a"  series  had  20  trials  while  the  other 
series  had  10,  divide  by  two  to  compare  with  the  rest. 

Summary  for  Discrimination  of  Size 

1.  When  the  tested  function  was  closely  related  to 
the  trained  function,  within  the  field  of  visual  discrimi- 
nation, there  was  a  small  amount  of  transfer. 

2.  The  larger  amounts  of  transfer  took  place  with 
those  series  which  were  most  closely  related  to  the 
trained  function  in  form,  size,  and  magnitude  of  dif- 
ferences to  be  discriminated. 

3.  There  was  an  indication  that  training  in  the 
discrimination  of  vertical  lines  interfered  with  the 
discrimination  of  horizontal  lines. 

4.  There  was  a  tendency  to  underestimate  the  second 
stimulus  in  judging  sizes  ranging  from  H  to  2%  inches. 

5.  The  amount  of  interest  children  showed  in 
sense  discrimination  had  something  to  do  with  the  num- 
ber of  successful  judgments. 

6.  The  number  of  wrong  judgments  increased  as 
the  magnitude  of  the  differences  to  be  discriminated 
grew  smaller. 

7.  The  various  series  of  the  final  tests  again  con- 
firmed our  finding  in  the  training,  that  improvement 
in  visual  discrimination  is  largely  a  function  of  reac- 
tion time.  If  the  subject  lengthened  the  reaction  time, 
he  decreased  the  number  of  wrong  judgments,  and 
vice  versa. 


NEW   EXPERIMENTAL   DATA 


59 


Experiment  2 

The  second  experiment  was  conducted  at  the  same 
school  and  at  the  same  time  as  the  first  experiment, 
with  different  subjects  from  the  same  grades.  Table 
14  shows  the  age,  teachers'  estimate  of  this  group  of 
subjects,  and  mental  improvement  from  1911  to  1912 
according  to   the   Binet  tests. 

TABLE  14 


Subject 

Age  in  Jan., 

Teachers'  Estimate 

Mental  Improvement 

1914 

1911  to  1912 

XVII 

9 

good 

1.4  years 

XVIII 

12 

average 

1.2      " 

XIX 

10 

good 

1.2      " 

XX 

10 

average 

1.4      " 

XXI 

13 

average 

.0      " 

XXII 

11 

average 

.6      " 

XXIII 

12 

good 

.8      '' 

XXIV 

10 

good 

1.4      " 

XXV 

11 

average 

.8      " 

XXVI 

10 

good 

.8      " 

Average 

10.8 

.96    " 

For  the  preliminary  and  final  tests  a  printed  page  of 
nonsense  words  of  three  letters  each  was  used:  Each 
subject  came  into  the  experiment  room  in  the  morn- 
ing on  one  of  the  school  days,  sat  down  at  the  desk 
and  was  shown  a  paper  with  a  written  alphabet. 
This  alphabet  was  divided  into  two  parts,  from  a 
to  m  and  from  n  to  z,  thus : 

abcdefghijklm 
nopqrstuvwxyz 

The  subject  memorized  the  letters  belonging  to  each 
half  of  the  alphabet  for  about  three  minutes,  after 
which  he  was  given  a  page  of  the  nonsense  words  and 


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62  VISUAL   SENSE   TRAINING   IN    CHILDREN 

asked  to  underline  words  that  contained  either  two 
or  three  letters  in  the  last  half  of  the  alphabet,  begin- 
ning from  the  top  of  the  page.  The  operator  watched 
the  time.  When  ten  minutes  were  up  the  subject 
stopped  marking.  The  following  three  lines  copied 
from  the  testing  page  will  make  the  experiment  clear: 


itp 

dje 

zna 

dkt 

giy 

hkr 

cbe 

dby 

vhl 

xgt 

hju 

wdy 

zxi 

fgy 

hkp 

msj 

vgr 

fte 

sdw 

cng 

bjy 

dhe 

cgx 

zaq 

For  training,  a  different  page  containing  the  same 
kind  of  nonsense  words  was  used,  but  the  subjects 
were  asked  to  underline  words  containing  either  two 
or  three  letters  in  the  first  half  of  the  alphabet.  Each 
subject  was  trained  three  periods  averaging  about  8J^ 
minutes  each.  The  preliminary  test  took  place  in 
December,  1913,  the  training  in  January  and  February, 
1914,  and  the  final  test  in  March,  1914.  The  interval 
between  the  dates  of  testing  was  two  months  and 
between  each  of  the  trainings  was  about  12  days  for 
each  subject.  The  improvement  from  the  training 
is  presented  in  Table  15. 

The  improvement  of  the  final  test  over  the  prelimi- 
nary test  is  shown  in  Table  16. 

Table  16,  however,  does  not  show  the  amount  of 
transfer  from  training,  because  the  influence  of  the 
preliminary  test  has  not  been  checked  out.  Owing 
to  the  limited  number  of  subjects  available,  an  un- 
trained group  was  not  provided  for.  The  author 
assumed  that  the  effect  of  the  first  training  upon  the 
second  training  would  be  about  the  same  as  the  effect 
of  the  first  or  preliminary  test  upon  the  second  or 
the  final  test.  If  this  had  been  true,  the  difference 
between  the  first  and  the  second  training  might  have 
served  as  a  substitute  for  a  check  by  an  untrained 


NEW   EXPERIMENTAL   DATA  63 

group.  This  assumption  was  incorrect,  because  the 
interval  between  the  prehminary  and  the  final  tests 
was  about  four  times  as  long  as  the  interval  between 
each  of  the  trainings.  In  accordance  with  the  law 
of  disuse  therefore  the  function  of  marking  the  last 
half  of  the  alphabet  was  more  weakened  than  that  of 
marking  the  first  half.  The  amount  of  transfer  cer- 
tainly should  be  more  than  is  shown  in  Table  17, 
just  how  much  more  the  writer  is  unable  to  say. 

For  lack  of  a  proper  check  of  the  influence  of  the 
preliminary  test,  the  amount  of  transfer  in  the  experi- 
ment is  of  little  significance.  However,  there  are 
other  points  of  interest  that  this  experiment  has  brought 
out. 

In  the  first  place,  the  quicker  improvement  in  mark- 
ing letters  of  the  alphabet  as  compared  with  sense 
training  deserves  consideration.  There  was  more  im- 
provement after  two  trainings  in  marking  letters  of 
the  alphabet  than  there  was  after  40  trainings  in  dis- 
criminating differences  of  size.  The  introspection 
of  the  two  trained  groups  throws  some  light  on  this 
point  of  difference.  In  the  experiment  with  sense 
discrimination,  when  the  subjects  were  asked  to  explain 
the  reason  of  their  improvement,  four  out  of  the  seven 
subjects  could  not  give  any  reason  at  all,  while  the 
other  three  merely  stated:  '^I  give  them  a  good  long 
look"  (subject  I),  ''I  do  not  hurry  myself  to  say 
^shorter'  or  'longer'"  (Subject  VI),  ''I  looked  at  them 
harder  and  tried  to  keep  the  first  figure  in  my  head" 
(Subject  VII).  This  indicates  that  the  only  device 
developed  by  the  training  was  that  of  lengthening 
the  reaction  time.  Only  two  out  of  seven  subjects 
were  even  vaguely  conscious  that  a  longer  time  was 
necessary  in  order  to  judge  more  correctly.     On  the 


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NEW  EXPERIMENTAL   DATA  65 

other  hand,  every  subject  in  the  second  experiment 
had  something  more  or  less  definite  to  say  when  asked 
to  give  his  reasons  for  improvement.  ''The  two  parts 
of  the  alphabet  are  more  clear  to  me  now,  I  can  tell 
in  which  part  almost  every  letter  belongs^'  (Subject 
XXV).  ''There  were  a  few  letters  which  I  was  not 
sure  where  they  belonged  at  first,  now  they  do  not. 
trouble  me  very  much"  (Subject  XXIV).  These 
introspections  were  confirmed  by  their  own  records. 
XXV  constantly  omitted  to  underline  words  contain- 
ing the  letter  j  in  the  training  and  marked  them  wrong- 
ly in  the  tests,  evidently  thinking  it  belonged  to  the 
last  half  of  the  alphabet.  XXIV  had  similar  trouble 
with  the  letters  j  and  k.  XXIII  was  troubled  with 
the  letter  j  and  XXVI  with  the  letter  ,k.  These  were 
the  subjects  who  made  mistakes  consistently  when  a 
certain  letter  or  letters  were  found  in  the  words.  Why 
should  j  and  k  be  placed  in  the  second  half  of  the 
alphabet  instead  of  I  and  m,  which  are  nearer  to  the 
second  half  of  the  alphabet  than  they?  If  this  was 
not  a  mere  accident,  the  writer  suspects  it  was  because 
when  children  were  taught  the  alphabet,  k  was  often 
made  the  stopping  place  for  breath,  while  I  and  m 
were  often  grouped  with  n-o-p,  and  j  and  k,  being  thus 
placed  at  the  end  of  a  group  of  letters,  would  probably 
be  felt  to  be  later  in  the  alphabet  than  they  really  are. 
To  go  on  with  the  introspection,  "I  do  not  need  to 
repeat  the  alphabet  as  much  as  I  did  at  the  beginning, 
in  order  to  place  a  letter  where  it  belonged"  (Subject 
XIX).  "The  places  of  the  letters  are  now  clearer  to 
me"  (Subject  XXI).  "I  have  got  a  way  to  find 
whether  a  letter  belongs  to  the  first  half  of  the  alphabet, 
to  join  that  letter  with  another  letter  which  I  am  sure 
belongs  to  either  part  of  the  alphabet  by  repeating 


66  VISUAL   SENSE   TRAINING   IN   CHILDREN 

other  letters  around  it"  [by  repeating  the  alphabet] 
(Subjects  XVII  and  XVIII).  It  seems  clear  from 
these  introspections  that,  first,  every  subject  realized 
that  the  means  of  success  depended  upon  the  right 
placing  of  the  letters  into  the  two  halves;  and  second, 
at  least  three  methods  were  developed  to  accomplish 
this  purpose:  namely,  each  letter  was  recognized  inde- 
pendently as  to  the  half  in  which  it  belonged ;  the  alpha- 
bet was  repeated  as  a  whole,  or  in  groups;  or  a  letter 
was  associated  with  other  letters  of  the  position  of 
which  the  subject  was  sure.  It  seems  that  the  quicker 
improvement  in  the  second  experiment  is  accounted 
for  by  the  realization  of  where  the  difficulty  of  the 
problem  lies  and  by  the  greater  possibiUties  of  de- 
veloping methods  to  meet  this  difficulty.  In  dis- 
criminating size  the  means  for  better  success  were 
not  easily  realized  and  the  possibility  of  developing 
methods  was  very  limited.  Subjects  XVII,  XVIII 
and  XX  had  no  method  whatever  at  the  beginning  of 
the  test.  During  the  first  test,  as  well  as  in  the  first 
training,  they  often  stopped  and  looked  up  into  the  air, 
scratched  their  heads,  stretched  their  legs,  or  tapped 
their  teeth  with  the  pencil.  Toward  the  last  of  the  ex- 
periment these  signs  all  stopped,  when  each  had  a  ''way" 
of  placing  the  letters.  Method  is  an  important  aid  to 
quick  improvement.  This  point  has  already  been 
brought  out  by  Ruger  in  his  experiment  on  the  solving 
of  puzzles.2o  The  curve  of  learning  rose  suddenly 
whenever  a  successful  method  was  hit  upon.  In  our 
first  experiment,  which  did  not  favor  the  development 
of  methods,  the  improvement  was  slow,  whereas  in  our 
second  experiment,  which  was  more  favorable  to  the 

2°  Ruger,  H.  A.    The  Psychology  of  Efficiency,  Archives  of  Psychology, 
Vol.  2,  No.  15,  1910. 


NEW   EXPERIMENTAL   DATA 


67 


development  of  methods,  the  improvement  was  much 
more  rapid. 

In  the  second  place,  the  experiment  shows  that 
intelligence  as  manifested  in  school  studies  went  with 
intelligence  in  marking  letters.  The  five  good  pupils, 
as  estimated  by  the  teachers,  contributed  69.10  per 
cent  of  the  improvement  in  the  number  of  words 
covered  and  83.95  per  cent  of  the  improvement  in 
the  number  of  words  correctly  marked,  while  they 
contributed  only  19.15  per  cent  of  the  omissions  and 
6.25  per  cent  of  the  commissions. 

TABLE  18 
Amount  of  Improvement  Contributed  by  the  Good  and  Average  Pupils. 


No.  of  Words 
Covered 

No.  of  Words 
Correctly  Marked 

Errors  of 
Omission 

Errors  of  Com- 
mission 

lood  Pupils. . . 
Average  Pupils 

293  or    69.10% 
131  "     30.90% 

196  or    83.05% 
40  "      16.95% 

—9  or    —19.15% 
—38  "     —80.85% 

1  or      6.25%, 
15  "     93.75% 

Total 

424  "    100.00% 

236  "    100.00%o 

—47  "       100.00% 

16    "  100.00%, 

Summary  for  Experiment  2 

1.  Three  trainings  in  marking  letters  of  the  alphabet 
have  shown  more  improvement  than  40  trainings  in 
discriminating  sizes  ranging  from  %  to  2J/^  inches 
with  differences  to  be  discriminated  ranging  from  Vso 
to  Vio  of  an  inch. 

2.  The  different  rate  of  improvement  seemed  to 
depend  upon  locating  the  difficulty  of  the  problem 
and  developing  methods  to  meet  the  difficulty.  If 
the  difficulty  of  the  problem  was  not  easily  localized 
and  its  nature  not  favorable  for  the  development  of 
methods,  the  rate  of  improvement  was  slow. 

3.  There  was  a  positive  correlation  between  success 
in  school  subjects  and  success  in  marking  letters. 


68  visual  sense  training  in  children 

Experiment  3 

This  experiment  was  conducted  in  the  Psychological 
Laboratory  of  the  University  of  Michigan  in  the  sum- 
mer of  1913.  It  consisted  of  marking  five-lettered 
nonsense  words  of  which  the  following  three  lines  are 
samples: 

yabgt  bgtre  ojrns  mrjau  nruyt  nhygv  pkiuw  sdfgh  bytfd 
zdtey  ngtew  pokmn  asdrt  dghtr  xdrty  qwerp  zsduy  iuytr 
pkgds     asdew    werty  yfonk     cazpo     hjiow     qshrii     jhgfr      ygvcd 

In  the  preliminary  and  final  tests  the  subjects  were 
asked  to  connect  with  a  dash  all  pairs  of  adjacent 
words  where  one  word  contained  three  consecutive 
letters  not  found  in  the  other.  Beginning  from  the 
top  of  the  page,  the  first  word  was  compared  with  the 
second,  then  the  second  was  compared  with  the 
third,  and  so  on  to  the  end  of  the  line.  The  last  word 
of  each  line  was  compared  with  the  first  word  in  the 
next.  For  the  training,  eight  other  pages  with  the 
same  kind  of  nonsense  words  were  prepared.  Instead 
of  marking  words  containing  three  consecutive  letters 
that  weie  not  the  same,  the  subjects  were  asked  to 
place  a  dash  between  two  words  which  contained  two 
adjacent  letters  that  were  in  common.  In  the  test 
the  task  was  to  ignore  letters  that  were  in  common  and 
attend  to  letters  that  were  different  and  in  the  training 
the  task  was  to  ignore  letters  that  were  different  and 
attend  to  those  that  were  the  same.  Both  tasks  were 
to  attend  to  certain  letters  and  ignore  others,  the 
difference  consisted  in  what  letters  to  attend  and  what 
to  ignore;  thus  the  two  activities  were  closely  related. 
The  experiment  was  performed  three  times,  each 
time  with  one  trained  subject  and  one  or  two  untrained 
subjects.  The  following  table  furnishes  important 
data  regarding  these  subjects: 


NEW   EXPERIMENTAL   DATA 


69 


TABLE  19 

Standing  of  Subjects  in  Marking  Five-Letter  Nonsense  Words 


Subject 

Part  taken  in                 Age  in 
experiment              August,  1913 

First  Performance 

Year  in  School 

XXVII 
XXVIII 

Training  and  tests          13 
Tests  only                        13.4 

Second  Performance 

Fourth  grade 

<<          << 

XXIX 
XXX 

Training  and  tests          15. 1 
Tests  only                        15.6 

Third  Performance 

Sixth       " 
Seventh  " 

XXXI 

XXXII 

XXXIII 

Training  and  tests          24 . 3 
Tests  only                        26 
"       "                           27.2 

Freshman,  college 
Senior,           " 
Freshman,     " 

All  the  work  was  done  in  the  Psychological  Labora- 
tory at  about  7  P.  M.  in  the  months  of  July  and  August, 
1913.  In  each  performance  the  trained  and  untrained 
subjects  were  tested  together  and  during  training  the 
untrained  subjects  remained  away.  Table  20  gives 
the  results  of  the  training,  and  Table  21  the  amount 
of  transfer,  of  the  three  performances. 

It  will  be  noticed  that  the  improvement  in  marking 
the  letters  of  the  alphabet  shown  by  this  experiment 
is  again  much  greater  than  it  was  in  sense  discrimina- 
tion. The  introspections  of  the  three  trained  subjects 
were  especially  enlightening.  Subject  XXVII:  ^^At 
first,  I  could  only  compare  the  words  letter  by  letter. 
Later  on,  I  became  so  familiar  with  the  work  that  I 
could  compare  two  or  three  letters  in  the  words  all 
at  once.  ^'  Subject  XXIX:  ^^When  I  began  this  work, 
I  had  to  compare  words  by  groups  of  two  or  three 
[letters].  Now  it  seems  that  the  letters  that  are  the 
same  in  two  words  stand  out  more  clearly.  The  only 
thing  I  have  to  do  is  to  pick  out  the  letters  that  are 


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NEW   EXPERIMENTAL   DATA  71 

the  same  and  then  to  see  whether  they  are  together 
or  not."  Subject  XXXI:  ^Tor  the  first  days  I  tried 
to  compare  the  words  as  a  whole  and  this  was  rather 
confusing.  Later  on,  I  happened  to  think  there  could 
be  no  possibility  of  the  words  having  two  adjacent 
letters  in  common  if  the  three  letters  in  the  center  of 
the  two  words  were  all  different.  Since  that  my  atten- 
tion has  been  directed  more  to  the  central  letters  of 
the  words.  Many  words  which  usually  wasted  time 
were  skipped  this  way."  It  became  very  evident 
from  these  introspections  that  the  amount  of  improve- 
ment depended  upon  the  methods  that  were  employed. 
In  spite  of  the  fact  that  Subject  XXIX  had  more 
training  than  XXXI,  the  latter  showed  a  greater 
amount  of  improvement.  This  confirms  our  finding 
in  the  preceding  experiment,  that  the  methods  em- 
ployed are  the  primary  factors  determining  amount  of 
improvement. 

By  comparing  the  age  of  the  different  subjects  it 
will  be  seen  that  the  older  subject  always  had  the 
advantage  over  the  younger  subject  in  his  ability  to 
develop  better  time-saving  methods.  Even  at  the 
very  beginning  of  the  training  there  was  a  difference 
of  method.  Subject  XXVII  compared  the  words 
letter  by  letter;  Subject  XXIX,  by  groups  of  letters 
of  two  or  three;  and  Subject  XXXI,  by  whole  words. 
This  suggests  that  the  older  subject,  having  had  more 
experience  in  reading,  had  already  developed  methods 
which  the  younger  subject  was  not  capable  of  at  the 
start.  This  would  indicate  that  there  are  certain 
^' lower"  methods  which  must  be  mastered  before  any 
''higher"  methods  can  be  attempted.  In  this  particu- 
lar case  there  are  evidently  three  grades  of  methods, 
the  letter  method,  the  letter-group  method  and  the 


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NEW  EXPERIMENTAL   DATA  73 

whole- word  method.  The  older  subject  was  able  to 
develop  more  efficient  methods,  because  he  had  already 
mastered  the  ''lower''  methods. 

Table  21  reveals  a  regular  increase  in  the  amount 
of  transfer  from  the  first  performance  of  the  experiment 
to  the  last.  The  reason  for  this  increase  can  be  found 
from  the  introspections  of  the  subjects  after  the  final 
test.  ''I  compared  the  words  as  they  were  in  the 
practising  pages  (in  letter  groups  of  two  or  three). 
Only  I  look  for  letters  that  are  different  this  time" 
(Subject  XXVII).  ''I  look  first  for  the  letters  that  are 
different  and  second  to  see  whether  they  are  connected" 
(Subject  XXIX).  ''The  central  letters  of  the  words 
to  be  compared  are  of  great  importance.  If  either  of 
the  central  letters  is  found  anywhere  in  the  other 
word,  there  will  be  no  possibility  of  having  three  consecu- 
tive letters  that  are  mutually  different.  Time  is  thus 
saved"  (Subject  XXXI).  It  appears  from  these  in- 
trospections that  the  different  methods  employed  by 
the  subjects  fully  account  for  the  differences  in  the 
various  amounts  of  transfer.  Subject  XXXI,  who 
had  the  best  time-saving  method,  also  had  the  largest 
amount  of  transfer,  while  Subject  XXVII,  who  had  a 
method  that  was  least  advantageous  in  time-saving, 
had  the  smallest  amount  of  transfer.  Moreover,  ac- 
cording to  these  introspections,  all  three  subjects  had 
slightly  modified  their  methods  brought  over  from  the 
training,  and  in  this  modification  Subject  XXXI  had 
again  shown  his  superiority  in  making  the  most  of 
his  own  method.  This  was  his  explanation:  ''In  the 
practising  pages,  when  the  object  was  to  look  for  con- 
secutive letters  that  were  in  common,  mj''  method  of 
attending  to  the  three  central  letters  of  the  words  to 
be  compared  would  have  failed  in  a  case  like  this: 


74  VISUAL   SENSE    TRAINING   IN    CHILDREN 

abcde  fghed.  Though  the  three  central  letters 
were  all  different,  yet  there  was  the  possibility  of 
having  two  consecutive  letters  in  common,  namely,  e  d. 
For  this  reason  I  had  to  attend  to  the  ends  of  the  words 
more  or  less,  and  I  did  not  have  the  full  confidence  in 
my  method,  as  I  had  in  that  of  the  last  test."  The 
fact  that  he  had  the  largest  amount  of  transfer  is 
thus  explained. 

Summary  for  Experiment  3 

1.  In  marking  five-letter  nonsense  words  the  amount 
of  improvement  depended  directly  upon  the  method 
that  was  developed  in  practice.  This  is  but  a  repeti- 
tion of  the  finding  in  the  training  of  Experiment  2. 

2.  The  older  subjects  showed  a  capacity  for  develop- 
ing efficient  methods  decidedly  superior  to  that  of 
the  younger  subjects. 

3.  The  means  of  transfer,  in  this  experiment,  were 
primarily  the  methods  that  were  developed  during 
the  training  and  applied  in  the  test,  albeit  these  meth- 
ods were  sometimes  modified  in  the  test. 

4.  An  adult  subject  was  better  able  than  a  youth 
to  apply  his  method  in  a  changed  situation. 

5.  The  amount  of  transfer  seemed  to  vary  pari 
passu  with  the  efficiency  with  which  the  method  was 
applied  in  the  changed  situation. 


CONCLUSIONS 

1.  Sense  training.  Experiment  1  indicates  that 
visual  discrimination  improves  very  slowly.  This 
slowness  is  accounted  for  in  two  ways. 

First,  it  is  probably  impossible  to  train  any  sense 
organ  and  secure  much  direct  improvement  in  it,  due 
to  the  limited  number  of  the  nerve  endings.  Since 
the  rods  and  cones  in  the  eyes  of  a  person  are  determined 
at  birth,  no  amount,  of  training  can  create  more  of  these 
nerve  endings.  According  to  the  time  record,  we  see 
plainly  that  the  improvement  in  eliminating  wrong 
judgments  is  largely  a  matter  of  visual  adjustment. 
For,  when  the  subjects  spent  more  time  in  looking 
at  the  various  shades  of  colors,  forms  and  sizes,  there 
was  generally  a  decrease  in  the  number  of  wrong  judg- 
ments, and  when  the  subjects  tried  to  reduce  their 
time,  there  was  generally  an  increase  in  the  number  of 
wrong  judgments.  The  very  fact  that  to  a  certain 
amount  of  time  corresponds  a  certain  number  of  wrong 
judgments  indicates  that  no  change  has  taken  place 
in  the  eyes  and  that  a  certain  amount  of  time  is  neces- 
sary that  they  may  see  more  clearly. 

Second,  the  slow  improvement  may  be  attributed 
to  the  fact  that  the  subjects  never  realized  that  they 
could  see  more  correctly  by  using  more  time,  so  the 
difficulty  of  the  whole  situation  was  never  localized. 
The  fact  that  the  reaction  time  had  anything  to  do 
with  the  number  of  successful  judgments  had  not 
only  escaped  the  detection  of  the  children  in  the  ex- 
periment, but  even  adults  on  whom  the  training  series 
was  tried  in  the  summer  of  1913  were  unable  to  explain 
why  they  made  better  scores  on  some  days  than  on 

75 


76  VISUAL   SENSE    TRAINING    IN    CHILDREN 

others.  During  this  training  series  there  was  one  sub- 
ject, an  instructor  in  psychology,  who  had  an  idea  that 
improvement  always  resulted  in  shortening  the  reaction 
time  and  tried  definitely  to  reduce  it.  After  five  weeks 
of  training  his  number  of  wrong  judgments  was  slightly 
higher  than  at  the  time  when  he  first  started.  The 
record  was  never  shown  to  the  subjects  and  it  seemed 
that  they  were  unable  to  appreciate  the  help  which 
came  from  lengthening  the  reaction  time  from  a  quar- 
ter to  a  half  of  a  second.     The  subjects  in  Experiment 

1,  being  unable  to  localize  the  source  of  their  faults, 
did  not  develop  a  method  for  improvement.  In  Ex- 
periments 2  and  3,  on  the  other  hand,  the  situation 
was  altogether  different.  Here,  in  marking  the  letters 
of  the  alphabet,  the  subjects  were  able  to  recognize  at 
once  the  difficulty  to  be  overcome,  whether  it  was  to 
divide  the  alphabet  into  two  halves,  as  in  Experiment 

2,  or  to  attend  to  certain  letters  and  to  ignore  others, 
as  in  Experiment  3.  They  were  thus  able  to  develop 
methods  and  improved  quickly. 

Sense  training  in  Experiment  1  not  only  failed  to  bring 
about  rapid  specific  improvement,  but  its  effect  on 
related  functions  was  also  small  as  compared  with 
the  effect  upon  the  related  functions  of  marking  letters 
of  the  alphabet.  Because  the  method  of  improvement 
in  the  training  was  not  clearly  recognized,  there  was 
made  no  purposive  application  in  the  test  of  methods 
developed  in  the  training.  For  the  same  reason  the 
amounts  of  transfer  in  Experiment  1  are  also  irregular 
and  seem  to  be  the  work  of  chance,  while  in  Experi- 
ment 3  the  amounts  of  transfer  are  regular  and  pro- 
portionate to  the  efficiency  of  the  methods  employed. 
Sense  training  or  the  education  of  the  senses  is  a  mis- 
nomer.    The    Montessori    method    should    better    be 


CONCLUSIONS  77 

called  education  through  the  senses  instead  of  ''of  the 
senses.     Montessori  says : 

^^It  is  exactly  in  the  repetition  of  the  exercises  that 
the  education  of  the  senses  consists;  their  aim  is  not 
that  the  child  shall  know  colors,  forms  and  the  differ- 
ent qualities  of  objects,  but  that  he  refine  his  senses 
through  an  exercise  of  attention,  of  comparison,  of 
judgment.  These  exercises  are  true  intellectual  gym- 
nastics."2i 

In  this  quotation  there  is  some  obscurity  as  to  what 
is  educated.  Is  it  the  senses,  through  an  exercise  of 
attention,  of  comparison,  of  judgment,  or  is  it  these 
intellectual  functions  through  an  exercise  of  the  senses? 
Evidently  it  is  the  latter. 

2.  Transfer.  This  word,  as  commonly  understood 
with  reference  to  formal  discipline,  means  the  applica- 
tion of  a  habit  or  a  method  or  an  ideal  to  a  situation 
other  than  the  one  in  which  it  was  developed.  The 
use  of  the  psychological  term,  habit,  has  been  very 
unfortunate  for  ''Upon  the  question  of  the  possibility 
of  transferring  a  specific  habit  from  the  situation  in 
which  it  has  been  formed  to  another  situation,  there 
has  been  a  great  deal  of  controversy.^'"  Bagley  thinks 
that  a  generalized  habit  is  impossible  for  ''the  term 
is  a  psychological  absurdity.  The  very  essence  of  a 
habit  is  the  specific  character  of  its  response. "23  But 
Colvin  asserts:  "There  seems  to  be  no  reason  in  the 
nature  of  the  case,  as  far  as  the  mechanism  of  the 
nervous  system  is  concerned,  however,  why  we  may 
not  think  of  several  stimuli  resulting  in  a  particular 
response  along  a  definite  path  of  conduction,  or,  why, 


21  Montessori,  M.,  The  Montessori  Method,  p.  360. 

22  Colvin,  S.  S.,  and  Bagley,  W.  C,  Human  Behavior,  p.  181. 

23  Bagley,  W.  C,  The  Educative  Process,  p.  204. 


78  VISUAL   SENSE   TRAINING   IN    CHILDREN 

on  the  other  hand,  we  may  not  conceive  of  a  single 
stimulus  forming  several  passages  of  discharge.  "^4 
Breed  says  this  is  a  controversy  over  terms  rather 
than  facts.  A  habit  is  either  specific  or  general  ac- 
cording to  the  way  one  looks  at  it.  Take,  for  instance, 
the  habit  of  cleanliness.  It  is  specific  in  the  sense 
that  it  is  a  fixed  response  of  avoidance  when  dirt  is 
the  stimulus.  Dirt  on  the  shoes,  desk  or  floor  may 
call  up  the  attitude  of  repugnance.  The  habit  may 
also  be  called  general,  if  one  regards  the  shoes,  desk 
or  floor  as  different  situations.  It  seems  to  the  writer 
that  the  term  habit  should  be  entirely  avoided  in  the 
problem  of  transfer,  for  two  reasons.  First,  transfer 
in  many  cases  is  a  conscious  process,  that  is,  one  ap- 
plies purposively  to  one  function  a  method  developed 
in  another.  Second,  in  the  application  of  the  method 
there  is  generally  a  modification  of  it  to  suit  the 
changed  situation.  Both  consciousness  and  modi- 
fiability  are  characters  lacking  in  a  habit.  Transfer 
of  method  is  preferable  to  transfer  of  habit. 

3.  Means  of  transfer.  It  is  interesting  to  note  that 
in  previous  investigations  experimenters  have  found 
more  than  one  means  of  transfer.^^  The  same  thing 
was  true  of  each  of  our  experiments.  In  Experiment  1 
the  means  is  the  lengthening  of  the  reaction  time;  in 
Experiment  2,  the  dividing  of  the  two  halves  of  the 
alphabet;  and  in  Experiment  3,  the  attending  to  a 
certain  kind  of  letters  and  the  ignoring  of  others. 
It  is  also  of  interest  to  note  that  the  means  of  transfer 
used  by  each  individual  was  also  the  method  used  by 
him  for  improvement  in  training.  Since  the  experi- 
ments were   concerned   with   different   kinds   of   dis- 


2*Colvin,  S.  S.,  The  Learning  Process,  p.  49. 
"Colvin,  S.  S.,  The  Learning  Process,  pp.  241-242. 


CONCLUSIONS  79 

crimination  and  the  means  of  transfer  in  every  case 
were  conditioned  by  the  method  of  improvement  in 
the  trained  function,  there  can  not  be  one  means  of 
transfer  for  all  functions.  The  common  character  of 
the  various  means  of  transfer  was  that  they  were  all 
some  sort  of  method  which  was  developed  in  the  train- 
ing for  the  purpose  of  improvement  in  it,  and  later 
on  applied  to  changed  situations. 

^.  Amount  of  transfer.  Our  experiments  seem  to 
indicate  that  the  amount  of  transfer  depends  upon 
two  factors:  namely,  purposive  application  of  method 
and  the  efficiency  of  the  method  applied.  In  Experi- 
ment 1,  none  of  the  subjects  was  conscious  that  there 
was  a  method  for  improvement,  consequently  the 
amount  of  transfer  was  small.  In  the  discrimination 
of  size  it  amounted  to  only  8.67  per  cent  (Table  13). 
In  Experiment  3,  in  the  marking  of  letters  (Table  21), 
wherein  the  subjects  made  purposive  application  of 
their  methods,  the  amount  of  transfer  was  much 
larger.  These  facts  seem  to  show  that  there  is  a  pos- 
sibility of  having  a  certain  amount  of  transfer  without 
clearly  recognizing  the  means  of  transfer,  but  a  surer 
and  larger  amount  can  be  brought  about  by  having 
the  means  of  transfer  made  conscious. 

Experiment  3  shows  plainly  that  the  comparatively 
larger  amounts  of  transfer  in  the  last  two  performances 
are  the  result  of  more  efficient  methods.  As  has  been 
pointed  out  in  that  experiment,  the  chance  of  getting 
hold  of  an  efficient  method  depends  upon  two  things — 
applicability  of  methods  derived  from  experiences  and 
the  ability  to  apply.  In  both  of  these  aspects  an  adult 
had  the  advantage  over  a  youth. 

With  regard  to  the  best  way,  therefore,  to  realize 
the  formal  value  of  a  study,  our  experiments  point  to 


80  VISUAL   SENSE    TRAINING   IN   CHILDREN 

the  development  of  methods — methods  for  use  in 
similar  situations,  efficient  methods,  methods  conscious- 
ly applied. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Angell,  J.  R.  The  Doctrine  of  Foi-mal  Discipline  in  the  Light  of 
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INDEX 

Age,  and  improvement 71 

Apparatus 

for  training 16 

for  testing  pitch  discrimination 28 

for  testing  color  discrimination 39 

for  testing  size  discrimination 46 

Bagley 3,  5,  77 

Bennett 36 

Berry 15 

Binet  tests 14,  59 

Breed 4,  78 

Color 

discrimination 39 

stimuli  used  in 39,  42 

results  in  tests  of 43 

Colvin 3,  5,  77 

Coover  and  Angell :  3,  37,  38 

Disciplinists 1 

Ebert  and  Meumann 3 

Formal  discipline 5,  6,  77 

Foster 4 

Fracker 1,  2,  3 

Habit,  in  relation  to  transfer 3,  77 

Heck 5 

Herbartians 5 

Incubation 9 

Individual  differences 7,  14,  25,  43,  63,  66,  71,  73 

Interference,  of  training 52 

83 


84  VISUAL  SENSE  TRAINING  IN  CHILDREN 

Jajnes 3,  6 

Maturation 8 

Method 

as  means  of  transfer 3,  63,  76,  78,  80 

of  training 16 

the  Individual 6 

the  One-group 7 

the  Two-group 8 

the  Three-Group 11 

Montessori 13,  14,  76 

Pillsbury 4 

Pitch 

discrimination 28 

stimuli  used  in 28 

fatigue  in 33 

results  in  tests  of 33 


Plato 5 

Reaction  time,  and  improvement 21,  26,  43,  45,  56,  58,  75 

Ruediger 1,  3,  5 

Ruger 3 

Scripture  and  Davis 3 

Sense  traming 13,  21,  26,  39,  43,  45,  63,  75,  76 

Size 

discrimination 46 

stimuh  used  in 46 

results  in  tests  of 48 

Swift 9 

Testing 

of  pitch  discrimination 28 

of  color  discrimination 39 

of  size  discrimination 46 

Thomdike 1,  2,  3,  5,  7,  8,  9 


iNDtex  '  y    \  ^V^^?^,'^  o'.  85 

Training 

method  of 16 

apparatus  used  in 16 

improvement  from 21,  26 

in  relation  to  interest 45,  56,  58 

means  of  improvement  through  ...  .24,  26,  43,  45,  58,  63,  66,  69,  78 

interference  of 52 

rate  of  improvement  in 24,  67,  69 

Transfer 

extent  of 2 

amount  of 2,  33,  39,  43,  48,  52,  55,  58,  62,  73,  74,  79 

means  of 3,   63,  73,  74,  78,  79 

and  common  elements 58 

meaning  of 77 

from  visual  to  auditory  discrimination 33,  39 

from  size  to  size 55 

from  size  to  color 43 

Whitney 4 

Winch 1 


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